The Flickr Basher Image Generatr

I am the 90s cd basher, and I have returned for my wrath upon cd's!

www.youtube.com/@narcissisticabuselibrary270/playlists

youtu.be/kRy9ADHcTZg?si=X8PISQJzzIRJyjiI

youtu.be/zI8T2qoujqo?si=0c_ME-jKDYqVJRZi

youtube.com/shorts/QZaSPO9h5Os?si=9IcfDDIdUZ2s54oZ

www.instagram.com/reel/DEIMpY3vTBb/?igsh=MTUyM2Nha2FhZnJh...

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

MOJAVE GROM MEGA 380 captures the thrills of Baja-style action

A new video coming soon to RCeveryday on YouTube

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 however we are following Lettice’s maid, Edith, who together with her beau, local grocery delivery boy Frank Leadbetter, have wended their way pleasurably a short distance south-east of Cavendish Mews, through the Burlington Estate, along Piccadilly past the six storey red brick façade of Fortnum and Mason with its six fanlight display windows, across busy Piccadilly Circus with its high hoardings advertising Bovril and Schweppes tonic water and its central fountain surmounted by Eros, and down to Trafalgar Square in the centre of London.

The pair are dressed in their summer best as they enjoy the sunshine: Frank in his Sunday best blue suit and a smart straw boater with a colourful grosgrain ribbon around the crown, and Edith in her blue floral sprigged frock and her wide brimmed straw hat decorated with a gay blue green and red ribbon and artificial flowers in matching colours, yet still holding her old battered black umbrella just in case of inclement weather. Circumnavigating tall Nelson’s Column guarded by his four giant lion statues, the pair blend in with the other citizens of London taking a stroll in the good weather. They laugh and chatter away amicably together as they perambulate across the wide tiled square, all awkwardness of their early courtship long left behind and replaced with a comfort and ease that comes with knowing one another better. They walk between the two ornamental fountains where children play and head towards the sweep of stairs that lead up to the National Gallery of London.

As they walk into the shadow of the tall Neoclassical columned façade of the gallery, Edith shivers and pulls herself more closely against Frank, not because she is cold, but because she is intimidated by the enormity and grandeur of the ediface. She has never been to the National Gallery before, and even as she walks past the liveried guards, she silently worries that she will be dragged away from Frank and thrown out for her impertinence. Yet when they approach one near the entrance to the gallery, he smiles and says good morning to them both.

“You see, Edith,” Frank reassures her, squeezing her forearm just above where her green leather handbag handle sits in the crook of her arm. “I told you there was nothing to worry about. The National gallery is for everyone, not just the wealthy.”

The pair walk through long galleries where the gently diffused light from large skylights above falls onto the artworks hanging in gilt frames along the painted walls around them. The galleries are populated with people of all kinds chatting quietly together in pairs like Frank and Edith or in small groups, all admiring the works hanging serenely about them in the long galleries. Edith’s heels click against the parquetry floors, but she is too amazed by all the beautiful paintings to feel self-conscious about it or feel inferiority because her clothes are not as fine as some of the gallery’s visitors around them. With her right arm linked firmly with Frank’s, she allows him to lead her through gallery after gallery, pointing out portraits of famous people from history, landscapes by the Impressionist painters of France, Italian Renaissance paintings and Dutch masters.

Eventually the pair wend their way to a gallery featuring artwork and furnishings from, or inspired by the Tudor period.

“The Royal Nursery 1538 by Marcus Stone,” Edith reads quietly aloud from the plaque stuck to the red painted wall beneath the large gold framed portrait. “Painted in 1871.” She looks closely at the fine details of the faces of the people in the oil painting and their beautiful Tudor costumes. “Well that’s obviously Henry VIII,” she remarks, indicating to the central figure pulling a toy galleon on wheels, who is unmistakably the Tudor sovereign. “But who are the others?”

“Well,” Frank says peering at the oil painting which has yellowed with age and exposure to the elements. “I’d say that is his son, Prince Edward,” He points to the cherubic child in what looks more like a Tudor torture machine than a wooden walker. “I would imagine that that is Princess Elizabeth who became Queen Elizabeth.” He indicates to a sad looking child standing on her own to the left of the painting with a wistful look on her face.

“How do you know that Frank?” Edith asks with eyes glittering with excitement.

“Well, see,” he points to her hands. “She appears to have been reading before the arrival of King Henry, and Queen Elizabeth was purportedly an avid reader.”

“Oh!” Edith nods and gazes seriously at the child.

“And that may be Princess Mary, who became Queen Mary who caused so many problems between the Catholics and the Protestants here in England.” Frank indicates to the young woman in very grand garb kneeling beside the young prince in the walker. “She was Elizabeth’s older half-sister. I’m not sure who the rest are. Servants maybe, or the king’s advisors.”

“Yes, she looks like a nursemaid.” Edith points to a woman in the shadows to the right of the painting standing by a cradle.

“Of course,” Frank remarks. “It’s all very fanciful, really.”

Edith turns away from the painting after the pair look at it in companionable silence for a few moments longer and spots several high backed chairs with red velvet seats sitting in a cluster in the middle of the gallery’s parquetry floor.

“Do you mind if we sit down for a few minutes Frank? My shoes are beginning to pinch from all the standing we’ve been doing.”

“Oh of course, Edith!” Frank replies with concern. “Lets sit over there.” He nods to the same cluster of chairs that had caught Edith’s eyes.

The pair walk over to the chairs where Edith sinks down with a grateful sigh, whilst Frank sits down beside her, placing his smart summer straw boater on the seat next to him. Edith reaches down to her foot and discreetly slips off her left Sunday best black pump and rubs her heel beneath her slightly rumpled stocking.

Sitting up again, Edith looks back across at the painting. “What do you mean by the painting is fanciful, Frank?”

“Well, I doubt that even King Henry’s children’s nursery would have looked quite so picturesque as that in Tudor times. Life dirty back in those days, even for kings and queens. Marcus Stone* was a Victorian Romantic painter, Edith, so his image is a romanticised version of what we might have seen.”

“But none of us can truly know what the King’s nursery looked like back then, Frank.”

“Very true, Edith. Mr. Stone was painting a historical scene that appealed to the romantic ideals of the time. Queen Victoria and her family were very interested in history, but a romanticised and sanitised version of it, and she influenced the tastes of all her subjects. She was also a very family-oriented monarch, probably the first since King George III, so domestic scenes were very popular at the time Mr. Stone painted it.”

Edith’s pretty cornflower blue eyes grow wide as she stares in admiration at her beau sitting beside her. “You are so knowledgeable, Frank.”

“Thank you Edith.” he replies proudly sitting up a little more boldly.

“How do you know so much?”

“Well, I do read quite a lot, Edith. You should see my bedroom at my lodgings. There are books everywhere. Mrs. Chapman keeps threatening to fling them all out. She says the weight will make the floors bow.” He chuckles.

“They won’t will they, Frank?” Edith gasps.

“Oh no!” he assures her. “It’s just Mrs. Chapman and one of her ways. I don’t think she has ever been a great reader, and she treats books, and book readers, with suspicion. I don’t think she would have agreed to take me as a paying lodger if she knew I read as much as I do.”

“I don’t know where you find the space in your head to store all the information you gather from what you read. I’m sure I couldn’t. I’m sure I’ll never be as smart as you, Frank.” Edith blushes with embarrassment.

“Rubbish Edith!” Frank retorts quickly. “I’ve told you before, we are all smart in different ways. There are things you know and know how to do that I don’t.”

“Sometimes I think what I know in comparison to you is of no significance at all.”

“That’s foolish talk too, Edith, and I said as much in Hilda’s kitchen that Sunday when we all went to the Hammersmith Palais**.” Frank chides his sweetheart, not unkindly. “You know how to cook, and all my knowledge of painting couldn’t feed an empty belly.” He looks at Edith lovingly. “You know you really mustn’t feel inferior, Edith. I only know what I do because my grandparents used to bring me here when I was, as Gran would say, ‘a wee bairn’.”

“Well, you are very lucky, Frank.”

“I know, Edith.” He looks around the red painted gallery populated with couples, small clusters of people and a few men and women on their own, quietly admiring the Tudor paintings covering the walls. “So, how do you like your first visit to the National Gallery, then?”

“Oh, I love it, Frank!” Edith enthuses. “You know, when we spent New Year’s Eve at The Angel*** and you suggested that we visit here, I had my doubts.”

“I know Edith. I could see them, as plain as day in your pretty face.” Frank chuckles.

“I always thought of galleries as places, well where people like Miss Lettice and her fine friends go, and not for people like me. The way she tries to talk to me about modern art and fashionable trends when she gets a new delivery from the Portland Gallery in Bond Street just leaves me feeling bewildered. Next to her, I feel I don’t even know what art is.”

“Well, those kind of galleries are a bit more avant-garde.” Frank agrees.

“What does that mean, Frank?”

Frank thinks for a moment, looking up to the white painted plaster ceiling above before replying. “Experimental and innovatively modern.”

“Well, I don’t think I am so keen on that kind of art. Paintings that look like blotches and squares of bright colour that I’m told are portraits or landscapes where I can’t see either, leave me feeling unsettled. But here,” She waves her hands expansively around her with a relieved smile. “I can see paintings and sculptures that I understand. That painting says it’s a nursery, and whether it is historically accurate or not, Frank, it looks like a nursery to me. These are like the pictures Mrs. Boothby has hanging above her sink in Poplar, only far more colourful and beautiful.”

“That’s because these are originals, not facsimiles, Edith.”

“Facsimile.” Edith laughs quietly and shakes her head as she rolls the foreign word around on her tongue like an exotic sweet. “And what does that mean, Frank Leadbetter?”

“A copy.” he replies with a slightly embarrassed chuckle of his own.

“Facsimile, facsimile,” Edith quietly recites, trying to gain familiarity with the word. “I like that word, Frank. It sounds very grand and important, and much nicer than copy, which sounds so boring and everyday in comparison.”

The pair laugh together and sigh happily.

“So, you’d be happy to come here again then, Edith?” Frank asks hopefully.

“Oh yes Frank! I’d love that!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that Edith, because there are so many more galleries to see, and the curators of the galleries do change paintings over from time to time, and have exhibitions of paintings brought in especially from other galleries in other countries.”

“Are you wanting to make me as knowledgeable about art as you, Frank?”

“Well,” Frank blushes. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing to expand your horizons, Edith, and I love showing you that there is a whole world of art that you’ve never experienced before.”

“Oh, you are so lovely, Frank.” Edith sighs. “How fortunate I am to have met you.”

“And how lucky I am to have met you too, Edith.”

The couple discreetly hold hands as they sit side by side on the seats and stare lovingly into one another’s eyes, the people milling about them, the sound of footsteps and the quiet burble of conversation drifting away as they focus only on each other.

At length Frank breaks their blissful moment of enjoyment. “What do you think your mum would say to me bringing you here, Edith?” His happy eyes suddenly cloud a little with concern.

“Oh, I don’t think she’d mind, Frank.”

“Don’t you think she would think I was trying to fill your head with ideas that don’t belong there?” he asks glumly, hanging his head as he speaks.

“No, of course she wouldn’t! Mum loves beautiful things too, Frank. I think she thinks the same of galleries as I did until you brought me here, and if she knew that the gallery was open to the likes of you and me, and that it was free, she’d spend a few hard earned pennies catching the tube to come here too.”

“Do you really think so, Edith?”

“Of course I do, Frank. Maybe we could even bring her here one Sunday on our day off.” Edith assures her beau.

“That would be a turn up for the books, Edith.” Frank smiles.

“Look, I know that you and Mum got off to a rocky start together when you first met, but she’s warming to you, Frank. Honestly she is.”

“I’m sure Edith.” Frank squeezes Edith’s hands. “I’m just anxious that we get along, is all. When you and I get married, I want her to be proud of her daughter’s choice in a husband.”

“Frank,” Edith looks earnestly into the young man’s anxious face. “Mum knows that I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I’m not a little girl anymore. She will be proud when I marry the man who suits me down to a tee, and that man is you, Frank.”

Frank blushes red and smiles shyly at his sweetheart who returns it with her own shy smile.

“I do love you, Edith Watsford.”

“And I love you, Frank Leadbetter.”

“Well, if you do, Edith,” Frank looks back at the picture of the Royal Nursery and points. “How many children shall we have?”

“Oh, you are awful Frank Leadbetter!” gasps Edith, her cheeks colouring at the mention of having babies. “None until after the day we get wed!” She releases his hands and playfully smacks him across the knuckles.

“Yes, but then now many?” Frank persists.

“We’ll see then, won’t we, Frank?” Edith laughs. She slips her shoe back on and picks up her handbag. “Come on,” she says, standing up. “We’ve sat here for long enough.” She holds out her hand to him. “It’s time for you to show me some more of the National Gallery.”

“Yes Miss!” Frank says, snatching up his hat and their guidebooks.

Arm in arm the pair begin to move further along the gallery towards the door leading into the next room, their heads bowed towards one another as they chatter happily between them.

*Marcus Stone RA was an English painter. He was born in London in 1840, and was educated by his father, artist Frank Stone, before exhibiting at the Royal Academy before he was eighteen. He is known for his illustrations of books by Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope. His earlier works were mostly historical incidents, but his later works were more sentimental. He is best known for his painting “In Love” which he painted in 1888. He died in 1921 in Kensington.

**The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.

***The Angel, one of the oldest Rotherhithe pubs, is now in splendid isolation in front of the remains of Edward III's mansion on the Thames Path at the western edge of Rotherhithe. The site was first used when the Bermondsey Abbey monks used to brew beer which they sold to pilgrims. It is located at 24 Rotherhithe St, opposite Execution Dock in Wapping. It has two storeys, plus an attic. It is built of multi-coloured stock brick with a stucco cornice and blocking course. The ground floor frontage is made of wood. There is an area of segmental arches on the first floor with sash windows, and it is topped by a low pitched slate roof. Its Thames frontage has an unusual weatherboarded gallery on wooden posts. The interior is divided by wooden panels into five small rooms. In the early 20th Century its reputation and location attracted local artists including Augustus John and James Abbott McNeil Whistler. In the 1940s and 50s it became a popular destination for celebrities including Laurel and Hardy. Today its customers are local residents, tourists and people walking the Thames Path.

Although carefully arranged to look like the National Gallery as it was in the 1920s, this scene is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection, including pieces from my own childhood.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The paintings on the walls in their gilt frames all come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The main painting featured is a copy of “The Royal Nursery 1538”, an oil on canvas by Victorian Romanticist painter, history painter, illustrator and genre painter, Marcus Stone.

The Queen Anne chairs in the foreground are part of a dining room set that I was given as birthday present when I was a child.

1:12 size miniature hats made to exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that one would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, makes them an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. Although not as expensive, Frank’s straw boater is made with wonderful detail and comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders miniature shop in the United Kingdom.

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

The Tudor table beneath “The Royal Nursery 1538” and the Tudor chair you can just see to its right, I bought as part of a lot of miniature pieces from an antique auction when I was a late teenager. The chest to the left of the photo came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

Rlaarlo brushless converted monster truck in street trim

Class 37 37401 "Mary Queen of Scots" pulls into Howarth Station on the KWVR with a rake of MK3 ScotRail coaches during the first day of the Diesel Gala 2023

class 37 #37401 'Mary Queen of Scots' pulls a rake of MK3 ScotRail coaches into Howarth Station on the KWVR during the diesel gala 2023

class 37 #37401 "Mary Queen of Scots'pulling a rake of coaches into Howarth Station on the KWVR during the first day of the Diesel Gala 2023

Who'da thunk that I'd have the best burrito of my life in Kentucky, of all places? In Louisville, there's a tiny place called New Wave Burritos. If you are in the area (or go out there for something fun), drop in and have a Basher!

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 however we have headed slightly west from Mayfair, across Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens, where on a bench along the path overlooking the Serpentine, not too far from the statue of Peter Pan* stands, Lettice’s maid Edith and her beau, greengrocer delivery boy, Frank Leadbetter sit. Around them, the bells of central London ring in the distance, calling the faithful who have not yet visited to prayers and masses, for today is Easter Sunday. Unlike last year, when the pair spent the Easter Monday bank holiday amidst the leafy green surrounds of Hampstead Heath**, the young couple have eschewed the crowds that fill the Easter fair** that is held on the Heath, preferring the quieter and more genteel surrounds of Kensington Gardens where only the splash of the Serpentine, the tweet of birds, the calls of ducks and the chatter of couples not unlike them punctuate the air around them.

“I say Edith, I do think your new Easter hat is jolly,” Frank compliments his sweetheart, admiring the straw hat she is wearing with its wide brim decorated with a gay blue green and red ribbon and artificial flowers in matching colours. “It suits you.”

“Do you really think so, Frank?” When the young man smiles broadly at her and nods, Edith continues as she pats the brim edge with her white cotton glove clad hand, “It was a bit of an extravagance, but Mrs. Minkin finally wore me down, telling me how much it would suit me with my blonde hair.”

“And so it does!” Frank assures her, before quickly adding, “Not that your black straw hat doesn’t.”

“Admittedly she had brought down the price from twelve and six, which I simply couldn’t justify.”

“Ahh,” Frank taps the right side of his nose with his finger knowingly. “But if I know my Edith, she probably still bargained down the price further.”

“Well,” Edith blushes coyly and glances down into the lap of her pretty homemade spring frock covered in a floral pattern of blue forget-me-not sprigs that she made using the sewing machine she bought from Ken, the son of Lettice’s char, Mrs. Boothby. “She did have it for nine and six, but I managed to haggle Mrs. Minkin down to seven and six.”

“That’s my girl!” Frank laughs good naturedly, clapping in delight. “No wonder my Granny loves you. Are you sure you aren’t really related to a canny Scotsman?”

“No Frank!” Edith laughs in reply. “I think Mrs. Minkin just enjoys the banter that goes with haggling. As she tells me, her ancestors have haggled over everything for centuries, so why should she rail against years of Jewish culture?”

“Well, it is nice seeing my girl in something new for a change.”

“Not that it’s the sunniest of days.” Edith says with a sigh, looking up to the overcast sky above with grey rain clouds roiling menacingly overhead. “It looks like it may rain, which may make my hat, and yours,” She points to Frank’s straw boater with it own pretty tricolour grosgrain trim atop his head. “Rather pointless.”

“Well, at least you were smart enough to bring a brolly.” Frank taps Edith’s black umbrella. He looks more closely at it and notices the damage along the black leather hook and the gently fraying edge of some of the black fabric in the furls. Sighing he adds as he worries a tatter, “I just wish I could afford to keep you in stockings and fans as you deserve.”

“Oh Frank,” Edith replies, noting his fingers on her umbrella. “You’ll have plenty of time for that later, after we save enough money to get married and I become a housewife.” She takes her beau’s long, slender hand in hers as much to get him to stop further damaging her umbrella as a sign of affection. “But we have plenty of time for that.”

“Well, I don’t know if your dad will ever want to give me your hand in marriage when the time comes, after that disastrous dinner at your parents’ last Sunday.” Frank shakes his head sadly. “Me and my big mouth.”

“Yes, you and that big mouth of yours.” Edith says not unkindly, rubbing his cheek consolingly with her spare hand as she pulls a face that is a mixture of love, pity, and admonishment. Her right eyebrow arches over her cornflower blue eye and her lips curl upwards in a sad smile.

“You did try to warn me, didn’t you? You told me before we went that I needed to mind my manners and not just go spurting off whatever was on my mind. Gran warned me of the same thing.”

“Don’t worry Frank. Mum is just a bit set in her ways, and she likes things the way they are because they work for her.”

“But the old order doesn’t work for everyone, and that’s why it’s broken and needs fixing. Has your Mum ever walked through the rookeries**** of Stepney or Poplar?”

“Probably not, Frank, and that’s why she probably doesn’t think anything is wrong, because nothing is wrong in her world.” Edith smiles across at Frank and looks earnestly into his face. “But I have, so I’ve seen the filth and squalor and poverty that offends you. I’ve seen the children with rickets and pale skin who are all skin and bone.”

“So, you understand me Edith, when I say that the world needs to change, and is changing for the better with improvements to people’s lives?”

“You know I do Frank, but you have to accept that Mum is a bit old fashioned, and she doesn’t really want change. She was concerned that you were a Communist.”

“A Communist?” Frank splutters. “I’d never get involved with that mixed up political movement. I don’t think they’ve done such a good job in Russia anyway, based upon what I’ve heard and read.”

“I know, Frank, but in Mum’s eyes, the likes of Miss Lettice and her family are people to look up to and admire, but not to aspire to be like. She doesn’t want me getting too far above my station. She feels that we all have our place in the order of things, and if we move out of those, it will create the upheaval like we heard happened in Russia.”

“But that’s preposterous!”

“See, even that word would frighten Mum because it’s foreign to her, just like me calling tea, dinner. Preposterous or not, that’s just how Mum thinks and to rail against her won’t do your cause any good.” She wags a finger admonishingly at her sweetheart.

“You believe in my cause, don’t you Edith?”

“Course I do, Frank.” Edith lets her gaze drift away. “I’ll admit you weren’t quite rabble rouser***** I’d ever imagined myself fancying in my life before the war, but we were all different people before the war, weren’t we?”

“I certainly am. I want change for all of us. I don’t want a world like we had before the war, where there was no equality and no rights for the working man, or woman.”

“I know, and Mum will come around too. Just give her time and do what she asks and try and temper your arguments. You’ll win her over with gentle persuasion over a longer period than you ever will with a hand raised in frustration.” She looks back at her sweetheart and smiles. “Just try. Alright, Frank?”

“Alright Edith, I’ll try.”

“Well, the roast dinner last Sunday wasn’t a complete disaster you know.” Edith consoles. “You may not have converted Mum to your cause, but you both believe in women’s suffrage, and,” she adds. “She did appreciate you giving her those yellow roses, and she was impressed by the fact that you knew what they meant. You heard her say that manners were very important to her, and she can’t fault them.”

“Unlike the wine.”

“Oh poor Frank!” Edith giggles. “I enjoyed it, but I think it was a bit too fancy for Mum’s taste. It’s the thought that counts.”

“I promise, I really will take you to Giuseppe’s up in the Islington****** one night, Edith, for a grand slap-up meal.”

“I’d like that, Frank.” Edith blushes. Then, returning the conversation to her parents and their opinion of Frank, she continues, “And you and Dad have a common interest in reading.”

“I don’t think your dad and I quite have the same taste in reading.” Frank looked doubtfully at Edith.

“That may be true, Frank, but you didn’t hear Dad complaining about you reading to better yourself. Mum might not believe in improving your lot in life so much, but Dad does, and that puts you in better stead for being a prospect for his only daughter.”

“You’re always so positive, Edith.” Frank remarks, looking in admiration at his sweetheart. “I really need to take a leaf out of your book.”

“Well, life isn’t always perfect, but I think you make of it what you want. And I’d like to make my life with you, Frank, so we better use those advantages that you have, to further your cause. Not that you’re proposing marriage any time soon.”

“Not right now I’m not, not that I don’t want to, but…”

“I know.” Edith nods. “You just want to be able to support me, and you can’t just at the moment. It will give us both a chance to save up some money. And by the time we’ve done that, you’ll have won both Dad and Mum over with your natural charm and care and consideration for me.”

“Oh!” Frank exclaims, tapping the crown of his straw boater as he does. “Thinking of care and consideration, I nearly forgot!”

He reaches down into a Willison’s Grocery bag at his feet. As his hands slip into its interior, the bag crumples nosily in protestation. He foists out a large white cardboard box on which is printed the words ‘happy Easter’ in pale green cursive copperplate script and the drawing of a large pink carnation. Through a window in the front, Edith can see a large Cadbury Easter egg******* wrapped in pretty green foil.

“Happy Easter Edith!” Frank says, presenting her with the Easter egg with a flourish.

“Oh Frank!” Edith gasps in return, taking the presentation box in her hands and looking at the egg in reverence. “But this is such an extravagance. I know Mr. Willison has been selling these for three and six!”

“Well, I’ll have you know that you aren’t the only person in London capable of haggling a better price, Miss Watsford!” Frank replies, sitting up with more of a straight back on the bench, smiling proudly. “In fact, I saved myself so much money buying this Easter egg for you that I think I can afford to take you for a slap-up tea at Lyon’s Corner House********.

Frank stands up and doffing his straw boater with one hand, he bows and offers his hand to Edith with a winning smile. “Shall we then, Miss Watsford?”

Taking his hand and rising, she replies, “With pleasure Mr. Leadbetter.”

Edith smiles at the thought as she snuggles into Frank’s side. And leaving the empty wooden bench, the pair walk away down the path towards the Peter Pan statue arm in arm as happily as two young lovers walking out together could be, meandering across Kensington Gardens.

*The statue of Peter Pan is a 1912 bronze sculpture of J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan. It was commissioned by Barrie and made by Sir George Frampton. The original statue is displayed in Kensington Gardens, to the west of The Long Water, close to Barrie's former home on Bayswater Road.

**Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is a large, ancient London heath, covering 320 hectares (790 acres). This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London Clay. The heath is rambling and hilly, embracing ponds, recent and ancient woodlands, a lido, playgrounds, and a training track, and it adjoins the former stately home of Kenwood House and its estate. The south-east part of the heath is Parliament Hill, from which the view over London is protected by law.

***Fairs have been held on Hampstead Heath since the mid 1800s, covering vast areas of East Heath to Spaniard’s Road. Before that, there had been fairs at Flask Walk in Hampstead since the 17th century, and another flourished in West End until it was shut down for rowdiness in 1820. The popularity of the fairs on the Heath exploded after 1871 when, just after the Hampstead Heath Act, the Bank Holidays Act created four public days’ rest. The Heath’s Bank Holiday fairs regularly attracted upward of 30,000 people at the August holiday, and 50,000 on Whit Mondays. Attendance records were broken when an estimated 200,000 people descended on the Heath one Easter Monday!

****A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.

*****Rabble-rouse, “to stir up the public’s emotions,” is a back formation from rabble-rouser, which is a compound of the noun rabble, “a disorderly crowd,” and the verb rouse, “to stir to anger.” Rabble is of uncertain origin, but it may be related to Middle Dutch rabbelen, “to speak hurriedly.” An earlier sense of rouse was “to shake the feathers” and referred to hawks, and while the origin of rouse is equally uncertain, one hypothesis is a connection to Latin recūsāre, meaning “to demur, object,” which is the source of English recuse. The term rabble-rouser came into use in the early Twentieth Century, but really became more modern parlance from mid-century.

******The Italian quarter of London, known commonly today as “Little Italy” is an Italian ethnic enclave in London. Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue - the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell spans Camden Borough and Islington Borough. Saffron Hill and St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church fall within the Camden side. However, even though this was the traditional enclave for Italians, immigrants moved elsewhere in London, bleeding into areas like Islington and Soho where they established bars, cafes and restaurants which sold Italian cuisine and wines.

*******One of the most iconic brands in existence, Cadbury’s distinctive purple and white logo has been a stalwart image on confectionery shelves across the UK for over a century - and never more so than at Easter. They first began following the tradition already established by some of the great European chocolatiers and began producing chocolate Easter eggs in 1875. Cadbury’s began in 1824 when John Cadbury opened a shop in Bull Street selling, among other things cocoa and drinking chocolate, which he prepared himself using a pestle and mortar. The Cadbury manufacturing business was born in 1831, when John Cadbury decided to start producing on a commercial scale and bought a four-storey warehouse in nearby Crooked Lane. Only a few years later in 1875 Cadbury produced their first Easter egg. The earliest eggs were made with dark chocolate and had a smooth, plain surface. They were filled with sugar-coated chocolate drops known as 'dragees’. By 1923, when this story is set, Cadbury were producing beautifully decorated milk and dark chocolate eggs in elaborate boxes decorated with the imagery of Easter. Whilst large baskets and intricately decorated cardboard presentation shells for Cadbury's Easter eggs used for those eggs promoted to the upper classes, cheaper versions that were still very beautiful were available for those of lesser means to help promote the brand of Cadbury for special occasions, like Christmas and Easter in every household across the Empire.

********J. Lyons and Co. was a British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the United Kingdom. At its peak the chain numbered around two hundred cafes. The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' Corner Houses, which first appeared in 1909 and remained until 1977, were noted for their Art Deco style. Situated on or near the corners of Coventry Street, Strand and Tottenham Court Road, they and the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and in Shaftesbury Avenue were large buildings on four or five floors, the ground floor of which was a food hall with counters for delicatessen, sweets and chocolates, cakes, fruit, flowers and other products. In addition, they possessed hairdressing salons, telephone booths, theatre booking agencies and at one period a twice-a-day food delivery service. On the other floors were several restaurants, each with a different theme and all with their own musicians. For a time, the Corner Houses were open twenty-four hours a day, and at their peak each branch employed around four hundred staff including their famous waitresses, commonly known as Nippies for the way they nipped in and out between the tables taking orders and serving meals. The tea houses featured window displays, and, in the post-war period, the Corner Houses were smarter and grander than the local tea shops. Between 1896 and 1965 Lyons owned the Trocadero, which was similar in size and style to the Corner Houses.

Although it may look life-sized to you, this idyllic scene is in fact comprised of pieces from my miniatures collection.

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

The foil wrapped Easter egg in its presentation box is a 1:12 artisan miniature that I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom, which is also where the bench came from.

Edith’s pretty straw picture hat decorated with a real fabric ribbon and artificial flowers is an artisan piece and was acquired through Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders miniature shop in the United Kingdom. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. Although not as expensive, Frank’s straw boater also comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders miniature shop in the United Kingdom.

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.

The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

The setting for this scene is my rear garden, and you can see my circular lawn edged by a garden path in the distance. I think it makes a splendid stand in for the lovely surrounds of London’s Kensington Gardens.