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 south of the Thames in the middle-class London suburb of Putney in the front room of a red brick Edwardian villa in Hazelwood Road, which belongs to Lettice’s childhood chum Gerald’s friend, Harriet Milford. The orphaned daughter of a solicitor with little formal education, Harriet has taken in theatrical lodgers to earn a living, and millinery semi-professionally to give her some pin money*, but her business has taken off substantially thanks to Lettice introducing her to a couple of her friends, who have spread the word about Harriet’s skill. The front parlour of the Putney villa, which doubles as Harriet’s sewing room and show room for her hats, is even more of a jumble than usual, for not only is the room’s middle-class chintzy décor covered with Harriet’s hats and sewing paraphernalia, but today it is festooned with hand made paper chains in bright colours, and a beautifully made fruit cake with an expertly created royal icing surface dotted with cherries sits on a raised cake plate in the middle of the tea table, for today Harriet is hosting a party for Gerald’s birthday.
“Happy birthday, Dinah darling!” Cyril, Gerald’s West End oboist lover exclaimed with delight as Harriet walked into the front room carrying the wonderful cake and placed it on what was her deceased father’s tilt top chess table, which now serves as her tea table.
The party is small, attended only by those whom Gerald trusts will keep his illegal homosexual relationship** with Cyril a secret, namely Lettice, Harriet and the couple of other homosexual men who board beneath Harriet’s roof: actors Charles Dunnage, Bartholemew Harrison, Leonard Arbuthnot and Arthur Bradley, the latter of whom today is appearing in drag as his alter ego, Beatrice. Upon Gerald and Lettice’s arrival by taxi from across the Thames, Harriet cried that she did not have the champagne requisite to celebrate the occasion, only to be shushed by Gerald and Cyril, who then revealed that they had been stealthily stashing bottles for the party under Cyril’s bed every time Gerald came over to visit and spend the evening. When Harriet decried that she had no champagne flutes, her concerns were hushed again by her theatrical borders who assured her that if all of them were used to drinking wine, brandy, gin and cocktails from her teacups, then they would be equally suitable for champagne. And thus, the teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl Harriet had prepared for a more sedate party were set aside, and the champagne poured into the teacups as the party began. Lettice smiled quietly to herself at this rather unorthodox arrangement as she quietly sipped her champagne from a gilt edged Royal Doulton cup, but quietly reminded herself that very little in Harriet’s Putney household was orthodox. Well wishes and gifts were given to Gerald, and the cake cut and served by Harriet before a series of party pieces were performed by the theatrical members of the group, much to the delight of Harriet, Lettice and Gerald. As a Shakespearean actor, Charles performed a monologue from Hamlet, whilst Bartholomew quite literally pulled a bunch of flowers for Gerald out of his top hat as he performed magic tricks. Leonard and Beatrice sang bawdy music hall songs, before Cyrila concluded the formal performances by playing a piece of music on his oboe he composed for Gerald, his efforts rewarded with applause from the assembled company, tears from Lettice and Harriet and kisses of love from Gerald. Then Gerald brought down his portable gramophone and selection of records, also kept hidden in Cyril’s bedroom for the party, and everyone took turns dancing across Harriet’s worn old parlour carpet.
Now, with the evening creeping in as the sun sets in the west, whilst more than half of the champagne has been drunk and the cake eaten, the festive atmosphere of the occasion is still very much present as the gentlemen of the party continue to choose tunes to dance to between telling funny stories of life in the theatre, before they have to set off for their respective theatres in London’s West End to either act, sing or play music and Lettice and the birthday boy go and have dinner at the Café Royal***: Lettice’s birthday treat for Gerald. Harriet and Lettice sit off to the side on Harriet’s sofa, sipping champagne from their teacups, the pair making rather an odd pair with Lettice dressed in one of Gerald’s beautifully designed evening frocks, whilst Harriet wears a pretty, but far more casual and obviously less expensive day frock.
“Why do they do that?” Lettice asks Harriet as Cyril calls out to Gerald, using the name Dinah to address him.
“Do what, Miss Chetwynd?” Harriet queries.
“Why do they call each other by ladies’ names, instead of calling each other by their proper names? Cyril is Cilla. Gerald is Dinah. I… I don’t understand, Miss Milford.”
“Well, Cilla is obviously the female equivalent of Cyril.”
“I have a friend whose name really is Cilla.” Lettice answers. “Well, Priscilla actually.” She takes a gentle sip of warming champagne from her teacup.
“And I guess, Dinah,” Harriet thinks. “Might be derived from Geraldine. You know, Geraldine, Dina, Dinah.” She shrugs. “I’m only supposing. Perhaps you might ask him.”
Lettice’s face crumples with irritation. “But why do they insist on doing that, is what I want to know, Miss Milford.”
“You don’t know, Miss Chetwynd?”
“Know what?”
“It’s for protection.”
“Protection? How does calling one another by female names protect them? It only draws attention to them, if you ask me. It sounds utterly ridiculous!” Lettice scoffs. “Grown men calling each other by ladies’ names! And I get criticized by my parents for some of the turns of phrase I use! Whatever next?”
“It may sound like silly, Miss Chetwynd, but it’s actually very smart,” Harriet explains. “And it’s been done by men like Cyril and Gerry for generations. They might call themselves Cilla instead of Cyril, or Dinah rather than Gerry, or even Aunt Sally instead of Charles,” She nods in the direction of Charles Dunnage. “In private, but they don’t do it in public, or rather they do, but surreptitiously.”
“I think you’re just making me more confused, Miss Milford.” Lettice laughs, shaking her head. “Then again, it might be the third glass of champagne,” She holds up her half empty teacup. “That stultifies my thinking.”
“Then let me explain.” Harriet says kindly.
“Please do, Miss Milford.” A peal of squealing laughter and claps of applause from Cyril as he watches Beatrice being dipped in a sweeping tango movement by Leonard momentarily distracts both ladies before Lettice turns back to Harriet. “I’m all ears.”
“Well, when you are queer, as my gentlemen lodgers are, you have to be careful what you say and to whom. It may be safe here at Hazelwood Road, but out there,” Harriet waves her hand towards the closed chintz curtains covering the front window sheltering the party guests from prying eyes. “Even a whiff of gossip, can land a man, even a real gentleman like Gerald, on the wrong side of the law.”
“Don’t I know it, Miss Milford.” Lettice shudders. “Just the thought of Gerald being dragged up before a magistrate, much less being sent to prison to serve a sentence with hard labour, terrifies me.”
“If it assuages your fears at all, it does me too, Miss Chetwynd,” Harriet assures her. “And whilst I quite enjoy having the theatrical household I have, and feel perfectly safe amongst my all-male coterie of lodgers, I don’t exactly fly a flag advertising that they are all queer.” She pauses casting Lettice a wary glance. “We all of us have to be discreet, and when I say we, I mean us, and them as well.” She points to Gerald and the other gentlemen milling around her tea table with teacups or silvers of cake in their hands.
“You seem very well versed in all of this, Miss Milford.” Lettice observes.
“It helps when you have the clientele I do in my boarding house, Miss Chetwynd.” Harriet says knowingly. “I learned things I never knew, and I discovered that I have the capacity to learn a great deal, very quickly.” She pauses and takes a draught of champagne from her cup. “Something my own father never gave me much credit for.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t have a father like I have, Miss Milford.” Lettice remarks sadly. “I was very fortunate that Pater, unlike Mater, is not blinkered about the education or place of women in society.”
“I am too.” Harriet sighs. “But then again, if I had had a better education, or found myself in different circumstances, I might never have known any of these fine gentlemen.”
“Or ladies.” Lettice adds as she watches Arthur as Beatrice spin like a whirling dervish, his spangled frock, a pre-war Edwardian tea dress built more for his bulky size, modified and updated with a shorter hemline, spinning around him in sparkling Napoleon blue. “So, how is using female aliases discreet, Miss Milford?”
“It means that when they go out and meet up at pubs, even friendly saloon bars**** in the West End like The Packenham***** that might be a safer haven for queer men, they can still talk more freely about one another and not be implicated.”
“Implicated? By whom?”
“Themselves,” Harriet sighs. “Each other: whether on purpose or by accident. Pubs are frequented by undercover constabulary ready to arrest a poor man under suspicion of a criminal act: men who will break easily under hard fists being pummelled relentlessly into them in a prison cell at the local police station.”
“Surely they wouldn’t implicate one another, Miss Milford.”
“Oh, wouldn’t they just, Miss Chetwynd? Queens can be very nasty and catty, especially in the theatrical industry. Some have gone to great lengths to get rid of their competition if they are vying for a role they want.” Harriet sees Lettice’s eyes grow wide as she turns her head slightly to stare at Gerald and his friends. She quickly clarifies, “None of my borders would of course, Miss Chetwnd!”
“Of course not, Miss Milford!”
“I want a peaceable kingdom. Anyway, if they refer to one another as Cilla or Dinah, Beatrice or Aunt Sally, they can get away with talking freely about one another, and even a sharp eared undercover member of the constabulary cannot pick them up on suspicion of an inverted nature******. So if Gerry were silly enough to say after a few too many pints at The Packenham, that he was coming home to Cilla – not that he would Miss Chetwynd – then no-one could accuse him of sharing a bed with Cyril.”
“I should certainly hope that he wouldn’t!” A look of concern crosses Lettice’s face.
“No, he wouldn’t.” Harriet sighs and look up at Cyril, who is engaged in a telling a story that has engaged his male companion audience, flapping his arms around in wild gesticulations as he giggles. “But Cyril on the other hand.” She cocks her eyebrow over her right eye.
“He isn’t as discreet as Gerald is.” Lettuce finishes Harriet’s unstated thought and then takes a gulp of her champagne, which suddenly tastes bitter and acidic as it tumbles down her throat.
“No, he isn’t.” Harriet agrees. “But at least if his lips are slick with drink, and he says that Dinah’s coming over to stay, his friends at the bar with know who he is referring to, but his foes, like the undercover constable, won’t.”
Lettice turns in her seat on the overstuffed chintz fabric sofa to face Harriet. “May I be frank, Miss Milford?”
“Goodness!” Harriet gasps. “It sounds like we might need a top up to our refreshments.” She opines, glancing at Lettice’s empty cup cradled in her elegantly manicured hand. Harriet looks up. “Charles! Charles!” She calls.
The mature actor with white hair and an impressive, expertly waxed handlebar moustache dressed resplendently in full evening attire looks away from Cyril and his story. When Harriet holds her own nearly empty teacup slightly aloft before her, he understands her meaning, nods and snatches up the open bottle of champagne next to Gerald’s partially eaten birthday cake and walks over to Lettice and Harriet with it, his bearing noble and elegant.
“And what are you two lovely wallflowers talking about over here in the shadows?” Charles asks as he bends and politely pours champagne into Lettice’s proffered cup. “Something deliciously salacious? Come whisper it into your Aunt Sally’s ear.” He then pours champagne into Harriet’s cup. “I’m sure there is nothing she hasn’t heard yet that would shock her.”
“No,” Harriet laughs. “It’s more likely the other way around.”
“Never a truer word was spoken, dear Hattie.” Charles finishes pouring and straightens up. “I warned you, Miss Chetwynd, the first time we met. Do you remember?”
“I can’t say I do, Mr. Dunnage.” Lettice replies. “Remind me. What did you warn me of?”
“When I first met you in the hallway of this very house, just out there, I told you to flee, Miss Chetwynd! To flee!” he says in his deep, booming actor’s voice as he sweeps his arms out dramatically, as though shooing Lady Macbeth’s unwanted spirit from the room. “I said for you to flee this den of iniquity and retreat to the salubrious surrounds from whence you came, before you were swept up into the maelstrom of actors that pass through Hattie’s welcoming doors, and whisked into these immoral and improper parties.” He sighs and smiles down at her cheekily. “However, I see that you failed to heed my timely words of warning and now it is too late.” He pauses for affect. “You Miss Chetwynd, my beauteous lady, are doomed to become one of the bohemian oddities of Hazelwood Road, for there is no going back now.”
“Perhaps I enjoy being a bohemian oddity, Mr. Dunnage.” Lettice answers him.
“Then you are welcome, dear lady.” he replies, taking up her hand and kissing it like a queen.
“Oh, get away with you, Charles!” Harriet slaps the older gentleman on the forearm playfully. “You’ll drive Miss Chetwynd away with your superlatives and theatricalities! Once an actor, always an actor!”
“How many times must I tell you, Hattie?” Charles bemoans irritably, suddenly animating his shoulders, making them rise and fall with every syllable. “I’m a thespian,” He emphasises the word with reverence. “Not an actor! Why must you insult me so, and throw me into the lot with those who are mere actors?” He spits the last two words out like an insult.
“But you just said there was a maelstrom of actors who flowed through Miss Milford’s door, Mr. Dunnage.” Lettice opines. “Didn’t you?”
Charles’ eyes grow wide and his cheeks puff in and out with surprise at being caught out by his own words. “Well, never mind if I did.” he blusters. “But even if I did, I am right. There are many actors in our little den of iniquity, but there are very few thespians like me.” He draws himself up to his full height and places a hand dramatically against his chest. Cyrill’s pealing laughter bursts forth again commenting with perfect comic timing on Charles’ stance, even though his laughter is really directed at something Gerald has whispered in his ear. “He’s an actor.” Charles points to Cyril. “Melodramatic, and amusing, yes, but never up to the standards of the Old Vic*******. Only true thespians can perform the works of the Great Bard. Anyone can be an actor, and anyone is!” He arches his eyebrows, causing her brow to furrow in folds of pale white flesh.
“I can hear you, Aunt Sally!” Cyril calls across the room. “Your booming old thespian voice betrays you, dear heart. Stop discussing me with monstrously jealous green eyes, and come back here this instant!”
“Or we’ll christen you an old masher********,” giggles Gerald, his champagne glass half aloft. “And ruin your reputation at The Bunch of Grapes*********.”
“Go on, Aunt Sally!” Harriet refers to Charles by his female alias, shooing him with anxious waves of her hand. “You don’t want your reputation as a gentleman’s man ruined. Anyway,” she assures him as his face falls. ‘We’re only discussing women’s business, and nothing of interest to you. Off you trot.”
Charles turns dolefully and slips away, back to the circle of men around the tea table covered in tea things.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Chetwynd. I ought to have fetched the champagne myself. I should have known we would have been subject to one of Charles’ dramatic conversations. Please forgive me.” She smooths down her skirt across her knee nervously as she returns her attention to Lettice. “Now, you were saying?”
“Please, don’t apologise, Miss Milford. In fact, Cyril’s response to Mr. Dunnage’s display of theatricality only cements my concerns.”
“Concerns, Miss Chetwynd?”
“I’ve already spoken to Gerald about this, and not in a nasty way. My dearest wish is for Gerald’s happiness, and I know that Cyril does make him happy: his bouts of melancholy are far less than they were before he met Cyril.”
“But?”
“Cyril’s lack of discretion scares me, Miss Milford.” Lettice confides. “I’ve made Gerald promise to be discreet and asked him to ensure that Cyril is as discreet as possible about who he is and their relationship.”
“Oh, Cyril’s only behaving outrageously because he’s here, Miss Chetwynd, and he can be himself. He isn’t anywhere near as flamboyant when he’s out in the world.”
“How do you know, Miss Milford? It seems to me that a few glasses, or rather teacups, of champagne loosens his tongue and enhances his…” Lettice pauses as she contemplates the correct word to describe Cyril’s current animated state. “His theatricality, shall we say.”
“It’s a shrewd observation, Miss Chetwynd, but I can assure you that I’ve been to a few saloon bars with Cyril and Gerry before, and he’s never done anything frightfully overt to betray himself.”
“Then I’m sure that Cyril was on his best behaviour, and even if he weren’t, I know Gerald well enough to know that he would have kept him in line.”
“Pardon me for saying this, Miss Chetwynd, and with the greatest of respect, but you weren’t there. You may know Gerry far better than me, being childhood chums and all, but I know Cyril better than you do. He can take care of himself and steer clear of trouble. He grew up in Cambridge. He’d have had to watch is p’s and q’s there.”
“Cambridge is hardly a market town, Miss Milford. It’s a university city, and to be fair, I know at least one or two sons of family friends who are members of Gerald and Cyril’s theatrical set who have sailed through the hallowed halls of both Oxford and Cambridge, and I’m not talking about the study halls.” Lettice sighs. “I can’t help but worry. I don’t want anything untoward to happen to Gerald,” She sighs more deeply. “Or Cyril for that matter.”
“It’s only natural that you should worry, Miss Chetwynd.” Harriet reaches out and places a comforting hand on Lettice’s knee: an overly familiar gesture that makes Lettice – unused to such shows of affection from a person she does not know that well – feel a little awkward. “But no matter what happens, Cyril and Gerry will always have a safe haven here.”
Sensing her unease, Harriet withdraws her hand somewhat reluctantly from Lettice’s knees as she finds a common bond between she and Lettice to try and bridge the gap that she so badly wants to cross.
The two women fall into a thoughtful silence that is at odds with the bright music from the gramophone and the theatrical noise that bursts like bubbles around them, as momentarily they allow themselves to become lost in their own deeper thoughts and concerns.
“But this won’t last forever, Miss Milford,” Lettice says at length, breaking their silence. “Will it?”
“Whatever do you mean, Miss Chetwynd?”
“Well look,” She waves her hand expansively around Harriet’s untidy front room cum millinery studio. “Dare I say it, but your home is more madcap and untidy than it was when I first met you.”
“I have tried to tidy up, Miss Chetwynd, truly I have.” Harriet defends herself, a little hurt that Lettice insists on bringing up the state of general untidiness of her home life yet again.
“Oh I don’t mean that, Miss Milford.” Lettice soothes. “I’m not here to tell you whether you should or shouldn’t have an untidy studio. I’ve said my peace. It’s not up to me as to how you choose to live.”
“Then what?”
“I meant the fact that you can’t keep this up for too much longer. You can’t continue to live here, run your business, and run a boarding house at the same time. I can understand that when your father died suddenly, due to his poor opinion about women’s education and blinkered idea as to your place in the world, he left you with little choice but to turn his home into a boarding house in order to keep the roof over your head. However, now that I’ve given you a helping hand to start off with by introducing you to a few influential new clients, your skills as a highly talented milliner are becoming better known and speak for themselves. That’s only going to increase, just like Gerald’s atelier. Gerald tells me that your orders for hats are rapidly increasing. You can barely keep the two businesses reconciled, can you?”
“Well,” Harriet agrees begrudgingly. “I can’t lie. It is getting harder to fit all the cooking, laundering, washing and tidying up around here around my customer appointments and the time I spend making my hats, especially in the lead up to Ascot. I’d love to have a housekeeper again, but I can’t quite afford one, at least not yet, and I don’t want to put up the rents.”
“What you really need is a full-time landlady to run the boarding house, but I know, you can’t afford it. I’m not telling you out of spite, but rather as a friendly piece of advice that soon – maybe not tomorrow or the next day – but soon, you’re going to have to decide where your future lies. Is it as a landlady of a theatrical boarding house, or a successful milliner? I know which one I would choose.” Lettice pauses. “However, the path I would choose for you would involve you giving this up and perhaps moving to more appropriate lodgings that don’t involve you being the landlady, but rather the keeper of your own atelier.”
“But then what will become of Charles, and Cyril, or Gerald.”
“They will have to make their own way in the world, and that is why I worry.” Lettice admits. “Gerald hasn’t enough money yet either, to give he and Cyril a safe home where they can live together, away from prying eyes and the more unkind people of this world. I hope he does one day, and I’m sure he will. However, now he needs to pour any profits he makes back into his Grosvenor Street atelier in order to make it bigger and better. Until he can set up that home, because for all his good intentions an oboist like Cyril will never be able to afford to buy a home, Gerald and he will have to find a safe way through the world.”
“I don’t want to think about that, Miss Chetwynd.” Harriet says bitterly as she turns away from Lettice, as if trying to shy away from the truth.
“I know you don’t, Miss Milford.” Lettice says kindly. She raises he hand to Harriet’s shoulder and then quickly retracts it before she touches it, returning it to nursing her teacup. “But how can you stop a stone from rolling after it gains momentum.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have given me an introduction to your aunt and her friends.” Harriet mutters.
“Nonsense, Miss Milford!” Lettice chides. “Now if I ever meant to cause harm to you, then that is exactly how I would have behaved. I may not have liked you very much when we first met, Miss Milford. You know that I foolishly saw you as a threat to Gerald’s and my friendship, when in fact you were no such thing. However, whilst we will never be bosom friends********, I don’t dislike you so much as to prevent you from developing your potential. You are a talented milliner, Miss Milford, and you know it, and now the world is starting to see what Gerald saw in you when he first met you, and what I have benefited from as a result. You can’t deny that millinery brings you pleasure. Enjoy it and embrace it. However, like anything else that you, or I, enjoy, there are sacrifices that we need to make – as I said before, maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.”
“Come on! Come on you two!” Gerald’s gleeful and animated voice interrupts the women’s conversation. “This is meant to be my birthday party!”
“And so it is, Gerry.” Harriet says with false joviality.
“Then if it is my birthday, I get to decide what we do.” He claps his hands. “You two look far too serious, like a pair of old countesses at a debutante ball, bitter and sad.”
“We’re not sad, Gerald!” Lettice balks. “We’re just being introspective.”
“Oh pooh introspection Lettuce Lea…”
“Ahh.. ahh, Mr. Buttons!” Lettice quickly interrupts Gerald from saying her hated childhood nickname, using the nasty name given him by Lady Gladys Caxton at her book reading at Selfridges, wagging a warning finger at him.
As Gerald hears Cyril giggle behind him, he counters, “Oh pooh melodramatic Madeline St John, queen of the mushy romance novella, and pooh you! We’re going to play a game!”
“What shall we play then?” Harriet asks as Charles takes away her cup and helps her to her feet, whilst Gerald does the same with Lettice.
“We’re going to play Cats and Dogs***********!” he says with delight as he withdraws a deck of cards from his tailcoat breast pocket. “We have enough time for a game before Cilla and Aunt Sally are due at their respective theatres, and Lettice and I dine at the Café Royal.”
*Originating in Seventeenth Century England, the term pin money first meant “an allowance of money given by a husband to his wife for her personal expenditures. Married women, who typically lacked other sources of spending money, tended to view an allowance as something quite desirable. By the Twentieth Century, the term had come to mean a small sum of money, whether an allowance or earned, for spending on inessentials, separate and in addition to the housekeeping money a wife might have to spend.
**Prior to 1967 with the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised private homosexual acts between men aged over 21, homosexuality in England was illegal, and in the 1920s when this story is set, carried heavy penalties including prison sentences with hard labour. The law was not changed for Scotland until 1980, or for Northern Ireland until 1982.
***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.
*****Some pubs and bars were “friendly” places (as much as a publican and his staff would tolerate in those days) for lesbians, queer men and more sexually bohemian society in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Francis Downes Ommanney was a well known Antarctic explorer who served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, yet what was less well known about him was that he was a homosexual. In 1966 he published his autobiography ‘The River Bank’ which contains a very interesting account of gay pubs in the 1920s. In it he talks about the social hierarchy of pubs and what happened when class lines were ignored: “There were several bars, a saloon and a public bar as a matter of course, but there might also be others, like the lounge, the private bar and sometimes the ladies’ bar. In the saloon, where I think bitter beer was about 8d. a pint, the surroundings were distinctly more classy than in the public where the same beer was only 4d. or 4d. a pint. There were sofas and tables with ash-trays and there might be a tinny piano, though this was rare in the West End… The public bar often had sawdust on the floor to absorb the beer swills, spittoons and a generally spartan, poverty-stricken air so that the patrons might feels themselves a step or two lower down the ladder than their neighbours in the saloon. I usually patronised the saloon because once or twice in the public bar the proprietor had looked at me in a meaningful manner and said severely, ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the saloon bar, sir?’ And I had immediately felt guilty as though I were there for a nefarious purpose, as perhaps I was…” He describes one of his more favourite haunts, the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street: “Perhaps the liveliest of all the bars I frequented was the Fitzroy Tavern in Soho which had an atmosphere as close to that of a Paris boite in its earthy gaiety as it was possible to achieve in London. It was frequented by an extraordinary collection of bohemians, dope addicts (very sinister in those days but nothing, apparently, now), lesbians, queers and oddities of all sorts. It was always full of soldiers and sailors, especially the latter, who always love the free-and-easy, pick-up atmosphere of a joint anywhere in the world.”
******Variously called the Pakenham Arms, Pakenham Hotel or Pakenham Tavern, this pub in Knightsbridge, popular with guardsmen from the Household Cavalry was a well-known gay haunt. It stood on the corner of Raphael Street and Knightsbridge Green, and was originally a country house. It was enlarged and converted into a Hotel and Tavern at a cost of over three thousand pounds by the builder Edward Nangle, who became its first licensee in 1847. It was demolished in the 1950s to build Caltex House, but a replacement pub, Tattersall’s, was included in the development.
*******An invert is a term coined and popularly used in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries to describe a homosexual. Sexual inversion is a theory of homosexuality popular primarily in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century. Sexual inversion was believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits: male inverts were, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined to traditionally female pursuits and dress and vice versa.
********The Old Vic theatre in the London borough of Lambeth was formerly the home of a theatre company that became the nucleus of the National Theatre. The company’s theatre building opened in 1818 as the Royal Coburg and produced mostly popular melodramas. In 1833 it was redecorated and renamed the Royal Victoria and became popularly known as the Old Vic. Between 1880 and 1912, under the management of Emma Cons, a social reformer, the Old Vic was transformed into a temperance amusement hall known as the Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern, where musical concerts and scenes from Shakespeare and opera were performed. Lilian Baylis, Emma Cons’s niece, assumed management of the theatre in 1912 and two years later presented the initial regular Shakespeare season. By 1918 the Old Vic was established as the only permanent Shakespearean theatre in London, and by 1923 all of Shakespeare’s plays had been performed there. The Old Vic grew in stature during the 1920s and ’30s under directors such as Andrew Leigh, Harcourt Williams, and Tyrone Guthrie.
*********Derving from American English a masher is a slang term for a man who makes unwanted advances, particularly sexual ones, towards women not acquainted with him, especially in public places.
**********Frequented by sailors, and known as a homosexual haunt, the Bunch of Grapes was located at 45 Strand, St Martin in the Fields. Originally called the Craven Coffee House in 1822, this pub was later renamed the Bunch of Grapes and continued to trade until 1928 when it finally closed its doors. It never reopened and was demolished after the Second World War in 1945.
***********The term bosom friend is recorded as far back as the late Sixteenth Century. In those days, the bosom referred to the chest as the seat of deep emotions, though now the word usually means a woman's “chest.” A bosom friend, then, is one you might share these deep feelings with or have deep feelings for.
************In the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, the game “dogs and cats” was in vogue. All that is required is a deck of playing cards and even numbers of guests to make two teams. The host of the party hides the cards around the house. They can be hidden inside of magazines, books, vases, drawers, biscuit barrels- just about anywhere really, but hopefully not in bedrooms or any other private spaces! The party guests have team captains that split off into two teams- the “dogs” and the “cats’. The goal for the dogs is to find all of the black cards, and the cats have to find all of the red ones. It is the team captain’s responsibility to gather all of their team’s cards. If a member of the dog team finds a black card, they have to bark loudly until their captain gets to them, and the cats have to meow. If a guest finds a card of the opposite team, they can quietly put it back, or choose an even more difficult hiding place. The game is over when one of the teams gets their half of the deck completed. One can only imagine that this game fell out of vogue after too many incidents when players tore a house apart looking for cards, or perhaps discovered something that was better left a secret about their host!
This rather cluttered and chaotic scene of a drawing room cum workroom decked out for a party, may look real to you, but believe it or not, it is made up entirely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Harriet’s beautiful birthday fruitcake the Edwardian tea set and the plate for the biscuits come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The enamel handled knife comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small World in the United Kingdom. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne. It is an artisan miniatures and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The various biscuits on the plate are all hand made and come from either Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering or were made 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 wrapped present comes from an online stockist of miniatures on E-Bay.
The tilt chess table I bought from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom, whilst the Indian hexagonal table comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.
1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism such as these 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. The natural straw hat with the green ribbon sitting on the arm of the chair was made by an unknown artisan in America.
The concertina sewing box on casters which you can see spilling forth its contents in the background is an artisan miniature made by an unknown artist in England. It comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the in the United Kingdom. All the box’s contents including spools of ribbons, threads scissors and buttons on cards came with the work box. The box can completely expand or contract, just like its life-sized equivalent.
The black japanned fire screen in the background, the black metal fire tools and the potted plants and their stands all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop.
Harriet’s family photos seen cluttering the mantlepiece in the background are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are almost all from Melody Jane’s Dollhouse Suppliers in the United Kingdom and are made of metal with glass in each.
The porcelain clock on the mantlepiece is made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. The pot of yellow and blue petunias and the ornamental swan figurine on the mantlepiece have been hand made and painted by 1:12 miniature ceramicist Ann Dalton.
The sewing basket that you can see on the floor just behind the chess table I bought from a high street shop that specialised in dolls and doll house furnishings. It is an artisan miniature and contains pieces of embroidery and embroidery threads.
The floral chintz chair is made by J.B.M. miniatures who specialise in well made pieces of miniature furniture made to exacting standards.
The paper chains festooning Harriet’s front room I made myself using very thinly cut paper. It was a fiddly job to do, but I think it adds festive cheer and realism to this scene
The Chinese carpet beneath the furniture is hand made by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia.
The Edwardian mantlepiece is made of moulded plaster and was acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom as were the aspidistra and fern to their side of the fireplace and the stands they are on.
The paintings and prints on the walls all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House in the United Kingdom.
