MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 37

Polyanthus at Harlow Garden Centre

It is here! It’s arrived! I wondered if it ever would come – but yes! We have spring. Well, some of us do. Here in the south, there has been sunshine and blue skies, although sadly, it’s not quite the same for those further north.

Unfortunately, as with everything in life, there has been a downside. I haven’t been able to go out and enjoy it as I have developed sciatica. It’s a horrible thing, with shooting pains along my back and down the backs of my thighs. The pains take me unawares, one moment I am walking along – rather wobbly, it’s true – the next minute, what feels like an electric shock has zapped my back. First thing in the morning is worst; trying to sit up in bed from a prone, or semi-prone position is awful, and then the attempted straightening of the back. Sometimes I cry out in pain. Still, these things are sent to try us, as they say, and the doctor has given me painkillers and told me that it shouldn’t take too long to heal. So, the bower awaits – but I can’t go there yet, as the bench is too low……

I called in at Harlow Garden Centre on a cold, grey day – it’s a place to go for instant boost whatever the weather – and I found trays upon trays of vividly coloured polyanthus. They were so bright that I almost needed my sunglasses. What a tonic! I love this place, not only for plants but also for the pretty things in the gift shop. It’s a perfect place to go for lunch, as well.

Audley End on a grey April day

Before I developed the sciatica, I visited Audley End with my husband. We are English Heritage members, so we were able to get in ‘free’, which is always a bonus. Audley End was built on the site of a Benedictine Monastery, and is a 17^th century house. At one time, apparently, it was enormous, almost like a palace, but is now only one-third of its original size. However, it’s still very large, with plenty to see. Its gardens were designed by Capability Brown, and contain several mock-classical monuments. Sadly, on the day I went it was raining heavily, so I didn’t get to walk round them. I did get to see the famous dolls’ house, which dates from the 1820s, though – but unfortunately damp has damaged it, and fungal spores were found. Consequently, it is in the process of being restored. A replica of the house is on show in the visitors’ reception, for children to play with.

My Tri-ang tin-fronted dolls' house awaiting restoration

I am fond of dolls’ houses, but am trying to resist the temptation to get involved in the hobby, because I have too many hobbies already. However, I must confess to having several houses. One is waiting to be restored, it is a similar Tri-ang tinplate one to the dolls’ house I had when I was small. The others are just small houses I have found on my travels. The largest belongs to my daughter. It was built by for her by her grandfather when she was little, and she acquired so much furniture that a few years later, he built her an extension!

I converted a kit to make my ideal newsagents!

I have visited several dolls’ house fairs, and marvel at the tiny goods on sale, many of them created by hand. I wouldn’t have the patience to knit a scarf or a table mat out of cotton on two pins. Yet some people do, and create all manner of other tiny things, from elaborately carved chairs to plates of food. Some people make shops, rather than dolls houses, turning them into dress shops, florists, toyshops or bakers. A couple of years ago, I built a little shop, but mine wasn’t a complicated affair, I just adapted a kit. I turned it into a newsagents that specialised in girls’ comics – well, it was my shop and I was reminiscing! It was a tie-in with a book I was writing at the time, about girls’ comics, and I created miniature comics and books using the computer. Then I visited a stockist of dolls’ house accessories and bought a little girl doll, who looked just about the right age to buy her copy of Bunty.

Do you remember Bunty? A straw poll I carried out showed that Bunty was the best loved of all the girls’ comics. I still have my Ladybird ring and my Dainty Doggie ring, which were free gifts, and I avidly followed the adventures of ‘The Four Marys’! Other favourites included Girl, School Friend, Girls’ Crystal, Twinkle, Jack and Jill, Chick’s Own and Sunny Stories. Then there was Jackie – that was a comic which shocked a lot of mums when it first came out, due to its willingness to tackle problems such as unmarried mothers in the problem pages, whilst similar magazines stuck safely to acne and etiquette! Later, like so many teens of the time, I switched to Valentine, Boyfriend, Roxy, Cherie and Romeo (not all at once – they were bought when they featured my favourite pop stars).

My Dainty Doggie Ring given free with Bunty in 1960

The shops don’t seem to sell many proper comics now – they are all product based, with a large ‘free’ gift. It’s the gift that the comic (or magazine as they really are now) is bought for, not for the reading matter. And they seem so expensive. Oh well, that’s another childhood tradition that’s bitten the dust!

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 36

I was thinking today about postcards. As you do. A few decades ago, everyone sent postcards when they were away, depicting golden beaches, blue skies and children splashing in the sea – even though they were probably writing the card on the beach, huddled by a windbreak in a Force 10 gale. Nowadays, the only cards I receive are the occasional ones from neighbours whose house we are keeping a watchful eye on. Oh yes, and my teddy bear gets them sometimes from his best teddy friend, but that’s another story….!

In the 1950s, through to the 1970s, you could hardly move along the prom or the pier without bumping into large revolving racks of postcards, mainly saucy ones from the likes of artists such as Donald McGill.  They were brightly coloured and politically incorrect, featuring enormous ladies clad in bathing suits, skinny red-nosed morose-looking men or maybe busty young women revealing their undies. At one time they were popular, but then became thought of as ‘common’ and so most people turned to (boring) view cards instead. When I was holidaying on the Isle of Wight last year, I discovered a Donald McGill Museum in Ryde, which was filled with his postcards and memorabilia. The cards were even glued to the ceiling. If you’re visiting the Island and are a McGill fan, it’s well worth a visit.

It also has a super little cafe, which is Alice in Wonderland themed. The museum and cafe are small, but, as they say, 'perfectly formed' and I just can't wait to go back.

In the earlier decades of the twentieth century, before the Second World War, postcard-sending was a national pastime. You could post a card in the morning to say that you’d call in at teatime, and amazingly the card would have arrived and the kettle would be on. Often, people sent postcards as greetings cards rather than the folded cards we know today. These greetings’ postcards would bear luridly coloured pictures of flowers or animals, or, on those intended for children, the child’s age together with a design of a doll, toy, animal, flower, cottage, pond – often the whole lot all on one card. In those days, design didn’t seem to matter quite so much.

Many of the cards were hand coloured, and the colourists seemed to go in for the brightest shades they could find. It's fun comparing two cards with the same design, and seeing how the colours vary. Sometimes the choice of colour can alter the whole appearance of the post card.

There were many kinds of novelty cards too – cards made from celluloid, or decorated with fur or feathers. Some bore pictures of dolls or animals with googly eyes that moved when the card was shaken, while others looked quite plain until you held them up to the light, when a beautiful picture could be seen.  There were cards made up of lots of pictures of toddlers superimposed in scenarios such as driving cars or playing instruments in a band, while other cards featured montages of women’s faces; often these faces spelt out a name or a town. The 1930s saw cards by artists such as Mabel Lucie Attwell. Mabel drew pictures of chubby toddlers and smiling children, with various cute captions.  She produced hundreds of different designs, and many other artists copied her style, some more successfully than others.

During the First World War, soldiers serving in France sent back beautiful postcards that were embroidered on silk. These cards were sewn by French women, in between their chores, and some were very skilfully done. Other ladies weren’t quite so proficient with their needle, and so their cards were less neat, but still colourful. Many of these cards are poignant, they bear tender messages for their wives and children, and you can’t help wondering whether that soldier managed to return home safely from the conflict. Other cards are sentimental, printed with the words of romantic songs or with pictures of soldiers in the trenches and an image of a woman representing the wife or sweetheart back home.

I’ve built up quite a large collection of cards over the years, and so has my daughter. I started her collecting when she was in her early teens, giving her a couple of beautiful albums specially made for postcards. It’s a good collecting field for youngsters as cards, even quite old ones, can be picked up cheaply at flea markets, antique centres and fairs. The messages on the cards are often interesting, too – sometimes they are very gossipy. Some people used to write the message upside down, the idea being that then the postman couldn’t read it. I would have thought that the any postman worth his salt would just have turned the card upside down to read it, should he be interested!

At last the promised milder weather is appearing, albeit it slowly. Yesterday it was warm enough to sit in the garden for a while watching the birds, as well as small, cheeky wood mouse. The mouse was gathering up some dropped birdseed from around the bird table and taking it to its nest under the fence.  The weather is meant to be even warmer next week, so at last the bower is beckoning. I shall be able to sit there and relax, dream and think. Maybe I could write postcards to my friends, reading. ‘Wish you were here’!

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 35

Another week has passed and still it is too cold to sit in the bower, though I’m pleased to report that at last green buds are just beginning to show on the honeysuckle and clematis. Meanwhile, a robin seems to have made himself at home there; the bower is sheltered from the wind, rain or snow, there is a thorny pyracantha just behind where he can retreat from any danger, and, most importantly of all, he has a perfect view of the feeders, so can be first down when the mealworms are put out.

I hope you had an enjoyable Easter with plenty of hot cross buns and chocolate eggs. The sun shone beautifully here on Easter Sunday – as it should on this most important day in the Christian calendar – and if only the bitter wind had dropped, it would have been perfect.  On Good Friday we decorated the Easter tree, a family tradition – just a few twigs, some wooden novelties, a few fluffy chicks and some mini eggs. We also hard boiled some eggs, put them into special chick and bunny decorated cellophane wrappers, and then immersed them for a few seconds in boiling water which caused the cellophane to shrink-wrap the eggs. Instant egg decoration!  

We exchanged proper, chocolate, eggs on Easter Sunday, but I couldn’t help thinking how sad it is that nowadays all that the manufacturers are interested in is blazoning their name over the boxes. In the 1980s, when my children were small, their eggs came in pretty boxes decorated with nursery characters or animals, and although the makers’ name was on the box it didn’t dominate it. Today, you might just as well give a bar of chocolate, because there is no difference in the design. When I was small, I had chocolate eggs decorated with sugar paste flowers, and my mother told me that during the 1920s and 30s, when she was a child, eggs were sometimes draped with strings of beads.

We invested in a breadmaker a few weeks ago, a lazy thing to buy, I suppose, but I’m afraid I just don’t have time for all that kneading and proving and kneading again. Anyway, the results have been excellent, and we have tried various kinds of bread. At least we know what is going into it, and there is a wonderful baking smell in the mornings; that very special smell of hot bread. It’s so easy, just weigh out the ingredients, tip them into the tin and leave the breadmaker to do the hard work.  The trouble is, of course, that warm bread is very tempting. Still, it could be worse. At least it doesn’t make cream cakes or doughnuts!

On Saturday we went to a concert at a nearby theatre which starred The Manfreds – a 1960s’ group at one time known as Manfred Mann.  Amazingly, the singer, Paul Jones, is now 70 (I tend to forget that performers I watched in my youth have grown older, too!) – but his voice is still strong and with that same distinctive sound that I remember so well. The vitality of the group was astonishing. Mike Hugg’s keyboard playing was brilliant as was the guitar wizardry of Tom McGuinness, and it made for a wonderfully nostalgic evening. Paul’s harmonica skills are legendary, too. I’ve always had a soft spot for the harmonica – my father and uncle were keen players, and most days I heard the sound of the ‘mouth organ’. They tended to play popular songs of the era, or maybe a bit of jazz, and always included ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ somewhere in the repertoire, accompanied by much foot tapping. Any family get-togethers included a singsong to the harmonica, and Dad always had one handy in his pocket. Sadly, I could never master the instrument; a quick burst of Jingle Bells is my limit!

Finally, last week I was very pleased to receive a copy of my latest book. It’s always a thrill for any writer to hold that first, fresh off the press copy, and as they turn the pages the months of hard work are forgotten. This one is called ‘Famous Character Dolls’ and explores dolls made to represent film stars, royalty, cartoon characters, advertising dolls, national dolls, pop singers and all kinds of other dolls which are not just run of the mill types. It’s published by Pen and Sword.

Newsflash! I’ve just heard that the weather might get a little warmer, and the cold winds should drop, around April 11^th. Fingers crossed. My bower awaits!