Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Edith sighs as she places the notepad and pencil in front of her on the deal kitchen, enjoying the silence that has fallen across the flat in her mistress’ absence as she sips some tea from her delftware teacup and enjoys a biscuit from the brightly painted biscuit barrel. Lettice has gone to Charring Cross to acquire a present for her oldest childhood chum and fellow member of the aristocracy, Gerald Bruton. It will soon be his birthday, and Lettice is treating him to an evening at the Café Royal* in Regent Street. However, she also wants something less ephemeral than a glittering evening out to dinner for Gerald to look back on in the years ahead as he turns twenty-five.
Edith picks up the pencil and starts listing the items that she knows she needs to order from Willison’s Grocers around the corner on Binney Street. As she lists flour, a dozen eggs and caster sugar** the pencil scratches across the surface, and Edith thinks of seeing her beau, grocer’s delivery boy and part time window dresser, Frank Leadbetter. Her heart skips a beat as she thinks about his handsome face smiling down at her, and his arms wrapping her in one of his all-embracing hugs that she loves so much. Frank might be a wiry young man, but his arms are strong from all the heavy lifting of boxes of groceries for Mr. Willison. Edith and Frank have been stepping out together since that fateful day in February 1922 when Edith flippantly suggested to Frank that Mrs. Boothby, the charwoman*** that comes to do the hard graft around the flat commented on how she felt Edith was sweet on Frank. Since their first date to see ‘After the Ball is Over’ – a moving picture that starred one of Lettice’s clients, actress Wanette Ward – at the Premier in East Ham**** the pair have spent a great deal of their spare time together, and their relationship has become very serious. Edith knows that it is only a matter of time before Frank proposes, and whilst that doesn’t mean any immediate change to the current rhythm of her life, she knows that eventually, once she is married, she will be obliged to leave service***** and become a housewife. She has been keeping money aside to help her when she and Frank finally set up house, and she has started a few scrapbook in which she cuts out and affixes images of wedding gowns and cakes from Lettice’s discarded magazines, as well as sketches of wedding frocks and bridesmaids’ dresses that she has done on late evenings after Lettice has retired to bed.
Edith is still daydreaming at the kitchen table when a gentle tapping at the kitchen door leading to the scullery breaks into her thoughts.
“Yes?” Edith queries, surprised at the tapping, and then even more startled when Lettice’s head pops around the edge of the door.
When Edith first came to work for Lettice, Lettice had the rather unnerving, and to Edith’s mind irritating and irrational habit of walking into the service area of the flat, such as the kitchen or scullery, seeking Edith for some reason or other, rather than ringing the servants’ bells located around the public rooms. It was only once Wanetta Ward had raised the idea with Lettice that whilst Cavendish mews might be her flat, and it might be her kitchen, that it was really Edith’s preserve, that she stopped the habit of just barging in.
“Miss Lettice!” Edith gasps, and quickly forces herself out of her comfortable Windsor chair and stumbles onto her feet. “I didn’t know you were home yet. Did you have a nice trip to Charring Cross?” She drops an awkward curtsey.
“I did, thank you Edith.” Lettice gushes, stepping through the door, still holding her parcels from Mr. Mayhew’s bookshop******. “I bought Gera… err… Mr. Bruton, a lovely book on Art Nouveau design.” She squeezes the parcel a little more closely to her chest as she speaks.
“That must be nice for you, Miss.” Edith remarks a little awkwardly.
“Yes, it is.” Lettice agrees, as she looks around the tidy kitchen.
Edith notices that Lettice is still dressed in her pretty floral summer frock, designed by Gerald, with its handkerchief point hem and matching cloche hat made by Gerald’s friend Harriet Milford.
“Did you need something, Miss?” Edith presses, anxious that Lettice is regressing back into her old habit of barging into the kitchen unannounced.
“No… yes… no… well…” Lettice stammers, suddenly lunging towards the opposite side of the kitchen table, dropping her parcels and purse onto its scrubbed surface. “Well yes, actually Edith.”
“Miss?”
“Well… look, I know that I promised that I would ring the bell when I wanted you, and I have, haven’t I Edith?”
“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, somewhat perplexed by her mistress’ response.
“But this time it’s different, don’t you see?”
Edith cocks an eyebrow over her right eye and looks quizzically at Lettice. “Err… no. I’m afraid I don’t see.”
“Oh please, please Edith,” Lettice flaps her well manicured and bejewelled hand in the air between the two women. “Do sit back down.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith manages to reply as she sinks back down into her seat and watches as Lettice scurries across the black and white chequered linoleum and drags across the second kitchen chair to the table and sits opposite her.
“Well this is far more personal, and as it pertains to you specifically,” Edith’s face drains of colour at Lettice’s words. “Oh! Oh no!” Lettice quickly assures her with a calming gesticulation. “It’s nothing bad, dear Edith. I’m not going to dismiss you.”
Edith releases the deep breath she has inhaled with a sigh of relief, and she sinks more comfortably into the rounded back of the worn Windsor chair. “Oh, you did give me a turn then, Miss. I really thought for a moment that I was in for it.”
“Good heavens no, Edith.” Lettice smiles. “That is the last thing that would ever happen! You’re the best maid a girl like me could ask for.” She pauses as the smile falls from her painted lips. “Which is all the more reason why this is an awkward conversation to have, but one I had to have in here, in your,” She waves her hands around her. “Well, your realm as it were.” She coughs with embarrassment as her face begins to colour.
“Awkward, Miss?” Edith queries again. “I… I’m sorry. Call me dim, Miss, but I really can’t say that I’m following you.”
Lettice’s shoulders slump as she releases a frustrated sigh. “I’ve come to apologise, Edith.”
“Apologise, Miss?”
“Yes,” Lettice admits guiltily. “I’ve been,” She casts her eyes downwards to the table surface as she speaks. “A bit of a beast lately.”
“Oh I wouldn’t go…” Edith begins to defend, but the words die on her lips as Lettice holds up a hand to stop her protestations.
“No. It’s true. I have been a beast. And I’m sorry, Edith. Truly I am. Mr. Bruton pointed out how sharp I was with you at dinner the other night. You didn’t deserve to be berated like that, especially in front of Mr. Brunton, whom I know you respect.”
“I do, Miss.”
“Yes, well, he obviously has a lot of respect for you too, Edith.”
“He does, Miss?” Edith’s eyes grow wide and her jaw goes slack in surprise at the revelation.
“He does. Firstly, he called me out on my bad behaviour the other evening, which he had every right to do. Secondly, he complimented you on being such a good maid. And thirdly he said that he’d employ you as a seamstress if he could.”
“He would, Miss?” Edith purrs with pleasure, flushing at the compliment.
“Mr. Bruton has proven himself to be far more observant than me. I seem not to be able to notice the pearl under my very nose, Edith.” Lettice chuckles awkwardly. “He’s noticed how smartly turned out you are on the occasions he has seen you coming and going on your afternoons off when he’s been here with me, and I haven’t.”
“Goodness!” Edith’s blush deepens as she considers that a couturier such as Gerald has observed her humble dressmaking skills.
“So there you go! Your skills haven’t gone unnoticed, and I for one am going to try and be more grateful for your services around here, Edith. You really are a brick, you know, and I’m so lucky to have you here to look after me and try and keep things in order for me.”
“And answer that infernal contraption!” she remarks poignantly, referring to the Bakelite******* and chrome telephone in Lettice’s Cavendish Mews drawing room which she dislikes intensely.
“And answer the telephone, which I know you loathe, dear Edith.” Lettice agrees with a relieved sigh, knowing that Edith will forgive her for her recent rudeness. “See, you really are a brick!”
“Well, thank you, Miss.” Edith smiles broadly.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so short and snappy, lately. It’s not an excuse, or rather it shouldn’t be, but… well you know the lady novelist you like whose flat I am redecorating?”
“Madeline St John, do you mean, Miss?” Edith perks up, excited about anything that Lettice might be willing to divulge about her favourite romance novelist.
“Yes. Well, Lady Gladys, whom you know as Madeline St John, has been very difficult with me.”
“Ohe she’s been lovely with me over that infernal telephone when I’ve answered it and she’s been on the line. She’s ever so polite and chatty. She’s even promised to sign a few copies of her novels to give to you, to give to me, Miss.”
“Yes, well, not to disparage her, but that’s the public face that Lady Gladys wants everyone to see. However the private Lady Gladys is not so kind.”
“Why do you say that, Miss.”
“Because Edith, I sadly know the truth now, but after it was too late to stop her from being difficult and controlling. You see, I am acting on her wishes to decorate a flat for her, but the flat belongs to a young lady around your age, and that young lady can’t express her own opinion as to how she wants her flat to be decorated.”
“Oh that’s terrible, Miss! Poor her!”
“Poor her, indeed.”
“So what are you going to do to right the situation, Miss?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure. I’m not even sure I can do anything.”
“Well,” Edith says comfortingly, picking up her pencil again and rolling it around in her fingers. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to fix it, Miss.”
Noticing Edith’s pad for the first time, Lettice clears her throat. She glances at the kitchen clock as it ticks quietly away on the wall. “My, my! Is that the time? Well, I mustn’t tarry here any longer and hold you up from your duties, Edith.” She stands and gathers up her parcels. “Are you writing to a friend?”
“No, Miss.” Edith holds up her pad. “It’s a grocery list, Miss.”
“Oh! Yes… well… very good, Edith.”
Lettice turns away and walks towards the kitchen door. Just as she is about to cross the threshold of the scullery, she turns back.
“You wouldn’t, would you, Edith?”
“Wouldn’t I what, Miss?”
“Leave me to go and work for Mr, Bruton as a seamstress.”
Edith feels the blush of embarrassment at the fact that her dressmaking skills have been noticed fill her cheeks.
“Never mind.” Lettice continues. “Don’t answer that, and forget I’ve asked you.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith replies, standing and dropping another hurried bob curtsey.
“I’ll raise your wages, just to be sure that Mr. Bruton can’t entice you away.” Lettice adds. “I should pay you more for all that you do, anyway. How does another four shillings a month sound?”
“Four shillings?” Edith gasps in amazement.
“That’s settled then.” Lettice smiles. “And I promise to try and be less prickly. I promise things will get better once Lady Gladys’ commission is finished.”
As Lettice retreats, her clicking footsteps quickly dissipating across the linoleum of the scullery before she disappears through the green baize door leading to the Cavendish Mews flat’s dining room, Edith can barely contain her excitement. In the space of a few minutes she has received an unexpected apology, discovered that her skills as a seamstress may pay her dividends in the future, and been given a generous increase to her wages. She settles back into her seat, reaches across and snatches up a chocolate biscuit, allowing her lids to close over her eyes as she does, and bask in the glory of what has just come to pass.
*The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
**Caster sugar is the term for very fine granulated sugar in the United Kingdom. British bakers and cooks value it for making meringues, custards, sweets, mousses, and a number of baked goods. In the United States, caster sugar is usually sold under the name "superfine sugar." It is also sometimes referred to as baking sugar or casting sugar, and can be spelled as "castor." The term "caster" comes from the fact that the sugar was placed in a shaker with a perforated top, called a caster, and used to sprinkle on fresh fruit. I have several sugar casters in my own antique silver collection from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
***A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
****The Premier Super Cinema in East Ham was opened on the 12th of March, 1921, replacing the 800 seat capacity 1912 Premier Electric Theatre. The new cinema could seat 2,408 patrons. The Premier Super Cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres who were taken over by Gaumont British in February 1929. It was renamed the Gaumont from 21st April 1952. The Gaumont was closed by the Rank Organisation on 6th April 1963. After that it became a bingo hall and remained so until 2005. Despite attempts to have it listed as a historic building due to its relatively intact 1921 interior, the Gaumont was demolished in 2009.
*****Prior to and even after the Second World War, there was a ‘marriage bar’ in place. Introduced into legislation, the bar banned the employment of married women as permanent employees, which in essence meant that once a women was married, no matter how employable she was, became unemployable, leaving husbands to be the main breadwinner for the family. This meant that working women needed to save as much money as they could before marriage, and often took in casual work, such as mending, sewing or laundry for a pittance at home to help bring in additional income and help to make ends meet. The marriage bar wasn’t lifted until the very late 1960s.
******A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.
*******Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, teapot handles, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
This comfortable domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
Edith’s deal kitchen table is set for tea for one. The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in the United Kingdom. The brightly painted biscuit barrel, attributed to the style created by famous Staffordshire pottery paintress Clarice Cliff, containing a replica miniature selection of biscuits a 1:12 artisan piece acquired from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Delftware cup, saucer, plate, sugar bowl and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot. The vase of flowers are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium and inserted into a real, hand blown glass vase. The pencil on the pad is a 1:12 miniature as well, and is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.
Edith’s Windsor chair is a hand-turned 1:12 artisan miniature which came from America. Unfortunately, the artist did not carve their name under the seat of either chair, but it is definitely an unmarked artisan pieces.
The bright brass pieces hanging on the wall or standing on the stove all come from various stockists, most overseas, but the three frypans I bought from a High Street specialist in dolls and dolls’ house furnishings when I was a teenager. The spice drawers you can just see hanging on the wall to the upper right-hand corner of the photo came from the same shop as the frypans, but were bought about a year before the pans.
In the background you can see a very modern and up-to-date 1920s gas stove. It would have been expensive to instal at the time, and it would have been the cook’s or maid’s pleasure to cook on and in. It would have included a thermostat for perfect cooking and without the need of coal, it was much cleaner to feed, use and clean. It is not unlike those made by the Roper Stove Company in the 1920s. The Roper Stove Company previously named the Florence-Wehrle Company among other names, was founded in 1883. Located in Newark, Ohio, the company was once the largest stove producer in the world. Today, the Roper Stove Company is a brand of Whirlpool.
On its top stand various jars of spices and tins of ingredients used in everyday cooking in the 1920s. The glass jars of preserves and spices came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom, whilst the other items come from by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, who specialise in 1:12 miniature grocery items, with particular attention paid to their labelling. Several other tins of household goods made by Little Tings Dollhouse Miniatures stand on the white painted surface of the dresser.
In addition to brass pots, the Delftware tea service and tins of household groceries, the dresser also contains two Cornishware cannisters which I found from an online stockist of 1;12 dollhouse miniatures. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors. Attached to the edge of the dresser is a gleaming meat mincer which is a 1:12 miniature that I acquired from a collector in the Netherlands. The demijohns underneath the dresser I have had since I was a teenager and were acquired from a small toy shop in London. The lettuce in the basket underneath the dresser I acquired from an auction house some years ago as part of a lot of hand made artisan miniatures.
On the bench in the background stands a bread crock. There is also a jar of Golden Shred orange marmalade made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Golden Shred orange marmalade still exists today and is a common household brand both in Britain and Australia. It is produced by Robertson’s. Robertson’s Golden Shred recipe perfected since 1874 is a clear and tangy orange marmalade, which according to their modern day jars is “perfect for Paddington’s marmalade sandwiches”. Robertson’s marmalade dates back to 1874 when Mrs. Robertson started making marmalade in the family grocery shop in Paisley, Scotland.
The tin bucket, mops and brooms in the corner of the kitchen all come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
