Equal10 Event (April 2025):
Lunar - Buny (Full Set)
Collabor88 Event (Aoril 2025):
Foxcity - Verdant Cottage Photo Booth
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Equal10 Event (April 2025):
Lunar - Buny (Full Set)
Collabor88 Event (Aoril 2025):
Foxcity - Verdant Cottage Photo Booth
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 northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid’s, parents live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home, although with her husband’s promotion to a Line Manager, she no longer needs to do it quite so much to supplement their income. We have ventured slightly north of George and Ada’s little terrace and are in Roundwood Park*, a large Victorian public park built on Knowles Hill in the 1890s. It is here that George and Ada, Edith and her beau, Frank Leadbetter have come to enjoy a picnic together. Edith has been stepping out with Frank, the young grocery delivery boy and sometimes window dresser of Mr. Willison’s Grocery in Binney Street, Mayfair for a few years now, and he and Edith hope to announce their engagement soon.
Around the quartet, the bells of London ring out in the distance, calling the faithful who have not yet visited to prayers and masses, for today is Easter Sunday. Overhead the bright blue sky is clear, and the quartet are bathed in glorious spring sunshine as they settle around and on a wooden bench on the edge of a brick pathway that hedges one of the many lush green lawns of Roundwood Park. They are not alone with other families with similar ideas taking advantage of the good weather enjoying picnics of their own on the other benches around them and on the lush green lawns of the park. In the obscuring shadows of trees, young lovers share food and discreet kisses in a pleasurable moment of intimacy. People promenade past Edith and Ada as they withdraw cutlery, crockery and a batch of Ada’s home made hot cross buns from Edith’s beautiful picnic basket with the hand painted lid – a gift from Australia from her seafaring brother Bert, who is a steward aboard the SS Demosthenes** whose route runs between London and Australia via Cape Town. Children peer with interest at Ada’s hot cross buns, and one braver toddler even reaches out a chubby star like hand to take one, but is smacked swiftly by his mother as she tugs him away, creating a barrage of screams and tears.
“Good afternoon.” Ada says politely to a wealthier looking lady who passes them by, smiling down at Ada and Edith on their knees on the red paving stones of the footpath and catching Ada’s eye. The lady smiles and murmurs a polite return greeting before leisurely strolling on, the stick of her umbrella tapping the paving stones beneath her feet. Ada pats the brim her russet felt hat decorated with silk flowers and feathers self-consciously.
“What’s wrong, Mum?” Edith asks in concern, glancing at her mother.
“Did you see that lady’s hat?” Ada asks.
“I didn’t notice.” Edith remarks, withdrawing Ada’s trusty red thermos**** with the orange banding from her basket.
“It’s as lovely as yours.” Ada opines, nodding at her daughter’s hat.
With the arrival of spring like weather, Edith has forgone her usual black dyed straw cloche and is wearing the wider brimmed natural straw hat decorated with a gaily striped ribbon and artificial flowers and fruit that she bought from Mrs. Minkin, a Jewish haberdasher in Whitechapel, recommended to her by Lettice’s charwoman*** Mrs. Boothby.
“Not like my old, bedraggled hat.” Ada continues, patting its soft brim self-consciously again. “Everyone’s in their Easter Sunday best, and the best I can rustle up is a hat that’s probably seen too many Easter Sunday sermons.”
“Oh stop it, Mum!” Edith says, reaching out and grasping her mother’s forearm and squeezing it reassuringly. “You look fine.” She takes out a milk bottle with a gleaming gold foil cap.
“In my old dark red polka dot skirt with the flounces, whilst you’re in your pretty frock that echoes the spring?” Ada says, screwing up her face in doubt.
“Mum, you look fine!” Edith assures her. “In fact, you look better than fine. You look lovely.” Edith pauses for a moment. “And, you can hold your head up proudly against any of these fine ladies.”
Ada pulls a face but then concedes with a murmured thank you to her daughter for her kindness.
“With Dad being a Line Manager now, and money not as tight as it used to be, maybe we could go and visit Bishop’s***** the drapers, or better yet, Mrs. Minkin’s haberdashery over in Whitechapel, and I can help you shop for a new hat.”
“Oh Edith!” Ada scoffs. She looks down into her lap. “I should be ashamed for being so proud and self-conscious about my looks. It’s unseemly, especially in a woman my age.”
“No it isn’t, Mum.” Edith retorts. “You deserve to treat yourself every now and then. Why not a new hat? Anyway,” She smiles broadly at her mother. “You’ll need to get yourself a new hat when Frank and I get married, won’t you?”
‘Well, it can wait until then.” Ada assures her daughter.
“You know I’ve never been here before, Mr. Watsford.” Frank remarks to George as they stand in the sunshine whilst Edith and Ada unpack their Easter Sunday picnic. “It’s lovely, and I think much nicer than West Ham Park******, which was where we used to go as a family when I was young.”
“Yes,” George agrees. “It’s a beautiful park, and we have a lot of good memories of outings here as a family, isn’t that right, Ada love?”
“What’s that George?” Ada asks as she looks up from where she is placing a hot cross bun on each of the four white china plates Edith packed in the picnic basket.
“Here’ you’ve done enough,” George replies, bending down and putting his hands out to his wife. “Let’s get you up from there and settled on the bench, Ada love.”
Ada groans as she takes George’s hands gratefully and allows him to help her get up. “Oh, I don’t mind if I do. My knees aren’t all they used to be, especially when pressed on old pavers. You don’t mind finishing up, do you, Edith love?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll pour the tea, Mum.” Edith assured her mother with a bright smile.
“And I’ll help Mrs. Watsford.” Frank adds, kneeling down next to Edith and helping her pull out teacups from the capacious wicker picnic basket.
As Ada sinks with relief onto the seat of the wooden bench she asks, “Now what were you asking me, George love?”
“Oh, I was just saying to young Frank here, how as a family, we have a lot of good memories of outings in Roundwood Park as a family.” George replies.
“Indeed we do.” Ada remarks. “George and I did a lot of our courting here back when Roundwood Park first opened.”
“Well, it seems like a lovely place to do that, Mrs. Watsford.” Frank says, daring to steal a glance at his sweetheart who busies herself unaware of being observed as she pours tea from the thermos into a cup.
“You must take Frank for a proper tour of the park after our picnic, Edith love.” Ada says to her daughter. “Show him the lodge house and the drinking fountain*******, and the ornamental beds and rose garden too.”
“I will Mum.” Edith agrees.
“Of course she will, Ada love.” George soothes. “The young couple will doubtless want a bit of time on their own together, and a stroll is just the ticket.”
“Dad!” Edith exclaims, blushing red as she pours tea into a cup for her mother and hands it to her, whilst Frank passes her a hot cross bun on a plate.
Noticing her daughter’s obvious embarrassment at her father’s clumsy remark, to change the subject slightly, Ada goes on, “George and I met here in Roundwood Park, you know, Frank.”
“No, I didn’t know., Mrs. Watsford.” Frank says as he passes a cup of tea to George, who bends down and helps himself to milk from the bottle.
“Oh yes.” Ada says as she puts her tea on the slats of the bench next to her and proceeds to slice open her hot cross bun with a knife. “We met here at a picnic for young people from the congregation of All Souls******** organised by the Vicar.” She looks slyly at her husband as he stands next to her, sipping his tea and thinks to herself that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. “Of course, we’d never have met if I hadn’t spoken to him first.”
George chokes on his tea.
“He was far too shy to talk to me, so I offered him something from my tin of home made biscuits,” Ada continues. “And that is how we met.”
Clearing his throat, Goerge defends himself. “I would have gotten around to talking to you, eventually, Ada love.”
“Oh would you now, George?” Ada asks with an arched eyebrow and a knowing look.
“That sounds rather like how Edith and I started stepping out,” Frank admits. “Only ours was over a box of groceries.”
“And a suggestion from Mrs. Boothby,” Edith adds.
“But if you hadn’t mentioned it to me, I don’t think I’d ever have been game enough to ask you out, Edith.” Frank admits. “I thought she was far too good for me, Mrs. Watsford.”
“Well, thank goodness for Mrs. Boothby then.” Ada says cheerfully with a smile as she butters her hot cross bun with butter from a square wrapped in foil sitting atop the picnic basket. “I’d says she was your cupid.”
‘I agree!” concurs Frank, remembering how it was Mrs. Boothby who encouraged him not that long ago to get on with asking Edith’s parents for their blessing to marry their daughter. “She is that.”
“I’ll have to meet this Mrs. Boothby you talk about one day, Edith.” Ada remarks as she settles back against the bench’s back and chews contentedly on her hot cross bun.
“Yes, I’ll do that.” Edith replies as holding her cup in one hand and her cut and buttered hot cross bun in the other, she takes a seat alongside her mother.
“What other reminisces do you have of Roundwood Park, Mr. and Mrs. Watsford?” Frank asks as he sits on the blue and white gingham picnic rug laid out across the paving stones alongside the basket. Looking up from beneath his straw boater with its brightly striped band he smiles between Edith’s parents.
“Well, there are plenty.” George says.
“Oh yes, like the story I heard last week!” Edith giggles.
“Now… Edith.” Ada warns with a faltering voice.
“What story was that?” Frank asks with interest, glancing first at his sweetheart and then between the smirking George and pale faced Ada.
“Mum made hot cross buns just like these for Dad on their first Easter Sunday picnic, and then gave all of them away before Dad could get a one!” Edith giggles.
As Frank, Edith and George giggle good naturedly around Ada she defends herself, “Well, mathematics were never my strongest suit when I was at school, and I hadn’t counted them.” She joins in with their joviality. “And anyway, I might have been smitten by the Lord if I’d refused to give the Vicar one.”
Ada’s final remark makes them all laugh a little more.
“It’s a shame that Mrs. McTavish couldn’t be with us today, Frank.” Ada remarks.
“She always spends Easter with her brother, my Great Uncle, Finlay, in Aberdeen, Mrs. Watsford. I think now that both my parents are gone, and me out at work every day and living in a boarding house in Clapham Junction, she feels the absence of family, keenly. You’re all lucky to be so close, with only Bert being away on the sea for stretches at a time.”
“I’m always grateful of that fact,” Ada says with a sigh. “Especially after those dreadful war years when so many families were destroyed forever.” She lifts her eyes to the blue sky dotted with white fluffy clouds above. “We have much to be thankful for.”
“Thinking of the war, what about all the lovely concerts the Willesden Junction Brass Band held in the bandstand********* we’ve seen over the years as a family, Ada love?” George remarks. “The ones before the war were especially good.”
“Oh yes, George!” Ada sighs with delight, allowing her head to loll backwards and for the spring sun to kiss her face. “Tuppence to hire a deckchair for the afternoon.”
“If we’re lucky, they might even play for a bit later in the day.” George adds.
“I say!” enthuses Frank. “That would be ripping!”
“The Willesden Junction Brass Band are quite accomplished you know, Frank.” George goes on. “They won the Camberwell Contest and the Camberwell Green Contest in 1911 and the Tottenham Contest in 1912.”
“That sounds very impressive, Mr. Watsford.” Frank remarks.
“I’ll show you the bandstand when we take a walk later, Frank.” Edith says cheerfully before taking a bite out of her hot cross bun and sighing with contentment.
“I’d like that, Edith.”
“It’s rather rustic,” George points out. “The balustrades are made from locally sourced branches made into a lattice, but it’s really rather charming.” He looks at his daughter. “If you see them setting up, you must come and fetch your mum and I.”
“As if I wouldn’t, Dad!” Edith laughs. “I used to love playing in the Gymnasium**********.”
“You were like a monkey in the zoo!” Ada laughs. “Clinging and swinging from those climbing frames and bars.”
“Weren’t you worried she’d fall, Mrs. Watsford?” Franks asks.
“Terrified, Frank, but to her credit, she never did.” Ada replies. “But even if she had, she’s have done what any child does at that age, and pick herself up off the ground, dust herself off and do it all again.”
“I would too, Mum.” Edith concurs before taking a sip of tea. “I loved all the round flowerbeds filled with tulips, hyacinths and daffs when I was little too.”
“What do you mean when you were little?” George chortles. “You still do now.”
“I noticed how you stopped to admire the red and purple tulips planted near the gates when we arrived, Edith.” Frank murmurs, smiling lovingly at his sweetheart.
“Thinking of flowers, of course I’ve shown marrows at the Willesden Show*********** with Mr. Pyecroft.” George adds.
“You and Ernie Pyecroft and your marrows!” Ada scoffs light heartedly as she shakes her head.
“Ernie and I are going to beat Mr. Johnson one day and win first prize for our marrows!” George wags a finger at his wife before tapping the side of his nose knowingly. “Once we figure out what is in that fertilizer of his.”
Ada sighs through her nostrils, rolls her eyes and shakes her head at her husband.
“Don’t mind Dad.” Edith chuckles. “He’s marrow mad.” She turns to her mother. “Didn’t you put me into the running for the ‘Bonny Babies’ prize one year, Mum?”
“Oh, not you, love.” Ada corrects her daughter. “You grizzled too much when we were parted to be in the ‘Bonny Babies’. I pictured you crying your lungs out before the judges.”
“Well I’m sure I remember us being there,” Edith persists. “We were somewhere with lots of babies and a flapping canvas tent.”
“I entered your brother one year. That might be what you remember, Edith love.” Ada suggests.
“Goodness! Imagine Bert being a ‘Bonny Baby’!” Frank laughs as he takes another mouthful of one of Ada’s hot cross buns as he thinks of Edith’s younger brother.
“He was a blithe and bonny baby.” Ada defends her son. “But just not bonny enough. He didn’t win.”
“What would you have won if he had, Mrs. Watsford?” Frank asks.
“Oh goodness Frank!” Ada gasps. “That was all the way back in 1903. I can’t remember. A bottle of cod liver oil, probably.”
Frank and Edith both look at one another, pulling faces of disgust as they both remember being given spoonfuls of the nasty tasting stuff when they were children by their mothers.
“You may not have been a ‘Bonny Baby’ contest winner, Edith,” Frank says lovingly as he looks at his sweetheart. “But I know you’d win a beauty contest now.”
“Oh Frank!” Edith exclaims, blushing at his compliment. “Thank you.”
“Alright you two!” George says brightly. “Off you go! Edith, take Frank on a wander of the gardens for a little bit and allow me to rest my weary bones on the bench in your absence.”
“I’ll unpack the finger sandwiches Edith made and the apple pie I made whilst you’re gone.” Ada adds.
“Are you sure, Mum?” Edith asks, getting up as Frank scrambles up from his seat on the picnic rug. “I can do it when I get back.”
“Your dad can help me, Edith love.” Ada replies. “Now, off you go.”
Ada and George watch as with linked arms, Edith and Frank slowly meander away down the path in the direction of the drinking fountain and gatekeeper’s lodge, their heads bowed towards one another as they chat: the perfect young couple in love.
“Do you think Frank will propose to her today?” George asks his wife.
“With Nyrie McTavish away, I doubt it, George love.” Ada replies. “His grandmother means too much to him for her to miss out on being one of the first to be told.”
The pair settle back into the worn wooden slats of the bench and allow the beautiful spring sun to sink into their bones. Closing their eyes, they fall silent for a little while, lost in the spheres of their own separate thoughts.
“However,” Ada adds at length. “I don’t think it will be too long before Frank proposes.”
“How do you know, Ada love?” George asks.
“Well, that awkwardness that seemed to be between them at New Year seems to have disappeared, thank goodness.” Ada breathes a heavy sigh. “I can’t quite put my finger on it. I just have a feeling that it will be soon.”
*Roundwood Park takes its name from Roundwood House, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in Harlesden for Lord Decies in around 1836. In 1892 Willesden Local Board, conscious of a need for a recreation ground in expanding Harlesden, started the process of buying the land for what is now Roundwood Park. Roundwood Park was built in 1893, designed by Oliver Claude Robson. He was allocated nine thousand pounds to lay out the park. He put in five miles of drains, and planted an additional fourteen and a half thousand trees and shrubs. This took quite a long time as he used local unemployed labour for this work in preference to contractors. Mr. Robson had been the Surveyor of the Willesden Local Board since 1875. As an engineer, he was responsible for many major works in Willesden including sewerage and roads. The fine main gates and railings were made in 1895 by Messrs. Tickner & Partington at the Vulcan Works, Harrow Road, Kensal Rise. An elegant lodge house was built to house the gardener; greenhouses erected to supply new flowers, and paths constructed, running upward to the focal point-an elegant bandstand on the top of the hill. The redbrick lodge was in the Victorian Elizabethan style, with ornamented chimney-breasts. It is currently occupied by council employees although the green houses have been demolished. For many years Roundwood Park was home to the Willesden Show. Owners of pets of many types, flowers and vegetables, and even 'bonny babies' would compete for prizes in large canvas tents. Art and crafts were shown, and demonstrations of dog-handling, sheep-shearing, parachuting and trick motorcycling given.
**The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.
***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.
****When we think of thermos flasks these days we are often reminded of the plaid and gawdy floral varieties that existed in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Invented in 1892 by Sir James Dewar, a scientist at Oxford University, the "vacuum flask" was not manufactured for commercial use until 1904, when two German glass blowers formed Thermos GmbH. They held a contest to name the "vacuum flask" and a resident of Munich submitted "Thermos", which came from the Greek word "Therme" meaning "hot". In 1907, Thermos GmbH sold the Thermos trademark rights to three independent companies: The American Thermos Bottle Company of Brooklyn, New York; Thermos Limited of Tottenham, England; Canadian Thermos Bottle Co. Ltd. of Montreal, Canada. The three Thermos companies operated independently of each other, yet developed the Thermos vacuum flask into a widely sought after product that was taken on many famous expeditions, including: Schackelton\'s trip to the South Pole; Lieutenant Robert E. Peary\'s trip to the Arctic; Colonel Roosevelt\'s expedition to Mombassa and into the heart of the African Congo with Richard Harding Davis. It even became airborne when the Wright Brothers took it up in their airplane and Count Zepplin carried it up in his air balloon.
*****Bishop’s was a drapery shop located along the Harlesden High Street from the late Victorian era through until the Second World War.
******West Ham Park is a privately owned public park in West Ham in the London Borough of Newham. Spanning seventy-seven acres, it is the largest park in the borough. The park has been managed by the City of London Corporation since 1874. The park features ornamental gardens, children's playgrounds, and sporting facilities including five-a-side football pitches, cricket nets and tennis courts. Until its closure in 2016, a nursery stood at the north east corner of the park, and was one of the largest operations of its kind in the United Kingdom, producing over two hundred thousand spring and summer bedding plants each year for the park, gardens and churchyards in the City of London and other Corporation open spaces. Plants grown in the nursery were also used for state occasions and banquets hosted by the City of London Corporation.
*******The Roundwood Park drinking fountain, with a plaque commemorating the opening of the park in 1895 stands just inside the main gates off Harlesden Road adjunct to the old lodge house.
********The parish of All Souls, Harlesden, was formed in 1875 from Willesden, Acton, St John's, Kensal Green, and Hammersmith. Mission services had been held by the curate of St Mary's, Willesden, at Harlesden institute from 1858. The parish church at Station Road, Harlesden, was built and consecrated in 1879. The town centre church is a remarkable brick octagon designed by E.J. Tarver. Originally there was a nave which was extended in 1890 but demolished in 1970.
*********For more than ten years after Roundwood Park opened, the Willesden Junction Brass Band gave concerts at the bandstand. Thew band played on Thursday evenings, and at weekends. For the first ten years they were not paid, but made money by selling seats and programmes. Then, in 1905, a change in the law allowed the Council to pay the band twenty-five pounds to play on Sundays. These concerts became so popular, that a new rustic-type bandstand was built to the south of the “Gymnasium” (children's playground), where more space for the audience was available. As tastes changed, the concerts lost their popularity, so the park lost its bandstand. In its place a new Summer Theatre was built in 1959 at an estimated cost of £6,750. This was well used, especially for children's events.
**********The word “gymnasium” which of course we all associate with the modern term “gym” is an old fashioned word used to describe a children’s playground because in the Edwardian era, playgrounds were more about children getting exercise and plenty of fresh air than they were about actual playing.
***********The “Willesden Show” was an annual event that celebrated growing fresh vegetables and flowers, with prizes. The show also hosted livestock and pets, with dog-handling, sheep shearing, as well as arts and crafts. The show later became the “Brent Show” after the Willesden Borough merged with Wembley in 1965.
Although it may look life-sized to you, this idyllic outdoor scene is in fact comprised of pieces from my miniatures collection, and the Roundwood Park background in in truth my front garden.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
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. Ada’s russet coloured hat is also an artisan piece decorated with miniature flowers and tiny feathers which came from America.
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. Ada’s tan handbag comes from Marilyn Bickel’s collection as well.
The wicker picnic basket was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.
The hot cross buns were made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The butter wrapped in foil was also made by her.
The Thermos flask came as part of another picnic set I acquired from a miniatures collector through E-Bay. The blue and white gingham picnic rug came from the same set. The enamelled teacups and plates come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The two black umbrellas came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.
The bench is made by Town Hall Miniatures, and acquired through E-Bay.
The brick footpath upon which the bench sits a very special piece, and one of my more recent additions to my miniatures collection. Made painstakingly by hand, this was made by my very dear Flickr friend and artist Kim Hagar (www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/), she surprised me with this amazing piece entitled “Wall” as a Christmas gift, with the intention that I use it in my miniatures photos. Each brick has been individually cut and then worn to give texture before being stuck to the backing board and then painted. She has created several floors in the same way for some of her own miniature projects which you can see in her “In Miniature” album here: www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/albums/721777203007....