Robson Cezar’s Whitechapel Houses & Corner Shops
Robson Cezar
At Christmas, we featured the wooden houses made by Spitalfields artist Robson Cezar out of fruit crates from Whitechapel Market. Since then, Robson has been busy through these last months of winter, collecting boxes and constructed more buildings, including a series inspired by the traditional corner shops of the East End. Contributing Photographer Rachel Ferriman visited Robson’s studio at Bow to record his new creations.
Robson has put seventeen of the wooden houses and corner shops he has made for sale. Every one is different and each comes with an LED light and battery to illuminate your building at night.
We are selling them on a first-come-first-served basis, so if you would like one please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com giving your first, second and third choice, and we will supply payment details. Postage and packing is £4. Unfortunately we can only post these within the United Kingdom.
These houses are sculptures not toys and we do not recommend them for children under the age of twelve.
Photographs copyright © Rachel Ferriman
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The Tower Of Old London
A contemplative moment at the Tower
Rummaging through the thousands of glass slides from the collection of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society, used for magic lantern slides a century ago at the Bishopsgate Institute, I came upon these enchanting pictures of the Tower of London.
The Tower is the oldest building in London, yet paradoxically it looks even older in these old photographs than it does today. Is it something to do with the straggly beards upon the yeoman warders? Some inhabit worn-out uniforms as if they themselves are ancient relics that have been tottering around the venerable ruins for centuries, swathed in cobwebs. Nowadays, yeoman warders are photographed on average four hundred times a day and they have learnt how to work the camera with professional ease, but their predecessors of a century ago froze like effigies before the lens displaying an uneasy mixture of bemusement and imperiousness. Their shabby dignity is further undermined in some of these plates by the whimsical tinter who coloured their uniforms in clownish tones of buttercup yellow and forget-me-not blue.
As the location of so many significant events in our history, the Tower carries an awe-inspiring charge for me. And these photographs, glorying in the magnificently craggy old walls and bulbous misshapen towers, capture its battered grim monumentalism perfectly. Today, the Tower focuses upon telling the stories of prisoners of conscience that were held captive there rather than displaying the medieval prison guignol, yet an ambivalence persists for me between the colourful pageantry and the inescapable dark history. In spite of the tourist hordes that overrun it today, the old Tower remains unassailable by the modern world.
The Ceremony of the Keys, c.1900
Salt Tower, c. 1910
Byward Tower, c.1910
Bloody Tower, c. 1910
The Tower seen from St Katharine’s Dock, c.1910
Tower Green, c.1910
View from Tower Hill, c, 1900
Upon the battlements, c. 1900
View from the Thames, c. 1910
Bell Tower, c.1900
Bloody Tower, c. 1910
Courtyard at the Tower, c.1910
Byward Tower, c 1910
Yeoman warders at the entrance to Bloody Tower, c. 1910
Vegetable plot in the former moat adjoining the Byward Tower, c.1910
Byward Tower, c. 1900
Water Lane, c 1910
Rampart, c 1900
Yeoman Gaoler – “displaying an uneasy mixture of bemusement and imperiousness.”
Middle Tower, c. 1900
Steps leading from Traitors’ Gate, c. 1900
Steps inside the Wakefield Tower, c. 1900
The White Tower, c. 1910
Royal Armoury, c. 1910
Beating the Bounds, c. 1920
Cannons at the Tower of London, c. 1910
Queen’s House, c. 1900
Elizabeth’s Walk, Beauchamp Tower, c. 1900
Yeoman Warder, c. 1910
Tower seen from St Katharine’s Dock, c. 1910
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Residents of Spitalfields and any of the Tower Hamlets may gain admission to the Tower of London for one pound upon production of an Idea Store card.
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Chris Skaife, Raven Keeper & Merlin the Raven
Alan Kingshott, Yeoman Gaoler at the Tower of London
Graffiti at the Tower of London
Beating the Bounds at the Tower of London
Ceremony of the Lilies & Roses at the Tower of London
Bloody Romance of the Tower with pictures by George Cruickshank
John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
Constables Dues at the Tower of London
The Oldest Ceremony in the World
A Day in the Life of the Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
Kevin O’Brien, Retired Roadsweeper
A few tour tickets are available this weekend: thegentleauthorstours.com
Kevin O’Brien at Tyers Gate in Bermondsey St with Gardners’ Chocolate Factory behind
One bright morning, I walked down to Bermondsey St to meet Kevin O’Brien and enjoy a tour of the vicinity in his illuminating company, since he has passed most of his life in the close proximity of this former industrial neighbourhood. Nobody knows these streets better than Kevin, who first roamed them while playing truant from school and later worked here as a road sweeper. Recent decades have seen the old factories and warehouses cleaned up and converted into fashionable lofts and offices, yet Kevin is a custodian of tales of an earlier, shabbier Bermondsey, flavoured with chocolate and vinegar, and fragranced by the pungent smell of leather tanning.
“I was born and bred in Bermondsey, born in St Giles Hospital, and I’ve always lived in Bermondsey St or by the Surrey Docks. My dad, John O’Brien was a docker and a labourer, while my mum, Betsy was a stay-at-home housewife. He didn’t believe in mothers going to work. He was a staunch Irishman, a Catholic but my mum she was a Protestant. I’ve got six brothers and two sisters, half of us were christened and half ain’t.
I grew up in Tyers Gate, a three bedroom flat in a council estate for nine children and mum and dad, eleven people. It was quite hard, we topped and tailed in the bedrooms. From there, we went into a house with three bedrooms in Lindsey St off Southwark Park Rd. It had no bath or inside toilet, so it was quite hard work living there for my mum. Bermondsey was always an interesting place because I had my brothers and my sisters all around me, and I had lots of good friends. Our neighbours were good. We helped one another out and everybody mucked in. Those were hard times when I was a kid after the war.
We used to play in the bombed-out church in Horselydown. That was our playing field and we crawled around inside the ruins. There were feral cats and it was filthy. We’d come home filthy and my mother would give us a good hiding. My brother, Michael loved animals and he used to bring cats home with him but my mother would take them back again. He was terrible, he wanted every animal, he would fetch home pigeons – the whole lot.
We were playing once and I fell in the ‘sheep dip’ – one of the vats used for tanning leather. We were exploring and we climbed down these stairs but I fell through a missing stair and into this ‘dip.’ It sucks you under. It stinks. It’s absolutely filthy. It’s slime. They had to drag me out by my arms. I went home and my mum made me take all my clothes off outside the front door on the balcony before scrubbing me down with carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush. All of me was red raw and I never went back in there again. It taught me a lesson. My mum was hard but fair.
In those days, the industries in Bermondsey were leather, plastic, woodwork and there was a chocolate factory. Nearly everybody in Bermondsey St worked in Gardners’ Chocolate Factory at some point. My first job was there, I worked the button machine, turning out hundred and thousands of chocolate buttons every day.
I hated school. I never liked it. I really hated it. I used to run out of school and they had trouble getting me back. I roamed the streets. The School Board man was always round our house, not just for me but for my brothers as well – although they went to school and actually managed to learn to read and write. Me, I hated it because I didn’t want to learn. I left when I was fifteen and went to work in the chocolate factory, I started as a labourer and worked my way up to being a machine operator. It was better than the apprenticeship I was offered as a painter and decorator at three pounds a week. At Gardners’ Chocolate Factory I was offered nine pounds and ten shillings a week. I was still living at home and my brothers couldn’t understand how I could put half of my earnings in a savings book. They couldn’t save but I didn’t drink. I didn’t like the taste of it. I didn’t start drinking until I was twenty-one or twenty-two. I was a late starter but I’m making up for it now.
I was always in the West End. I loved Soho and I liked being in the West End because I was free and I could do what I wanted. As a gay man in Bermondsey, it was hard. So all my friends and the people I got to know were in the West End. There were loads of gay places, little dive bars in Wardour St, as small as living rooms. The Catacombs was one I went to, in Earls Court. That was a brilliant place. When I was thirteen, I got into The Boltons pub. It was hard work, getting into pubs but you got to know other people who were gay. You could get arrested for being gay and that was part of the excitement. There was fear but you got to meet people.
I was about fifteen when I told my mum I was gay. Her first words were, ‘What’s your dad going to say?’ That was hard, because my dad didn’t speak to me for nearly a year. He wouldn’t even sit in the same room as me. He was such hard work. If I was going out anywhere, my brothers and sisters would say ‘He’s going out to meet his boyfriends!’ But they all loved me and I loved my family. I could always stick up for myself. If someone said something to me, I’d say something back. I was one of those that didn’t worry what people thought.
I got the sack from the chocolate factory because I didn’t like one of the managers and I threatened to put him in one of the hoppers. I chased him round the machines with a great big palette knife and he sacked me, so I walked straight out of that job, walked round to Sarsons’ Vinegar in Tower Bridge Rd and got another job the same day for more money. It was a two minute walk. Within a matter of two or three weeks, I became a brewer. It was a good job but many people did away with themselves there. They climbed onto the vats of vinegar until they got high on the fumes and fell into it. People were depressed, they had come back from the war to nothing and they couldn’t rebuild their lives.
After the vinegar factory, I got a job with Southwark Council as a road sweeper in Tower Bridge Rd. I couldn’t read or write but I used to memorise all the streets on the list that I had to sweep. Even though I’d walked down many of these streets all my life, I didn’t know their names until I learned to read the signs. It was an interesting job because you got to meet a lot of people on the street and I got chatted up as well. I got to know all the pubs and delivered them bin bags, so I could rely on getting myself a cup of tea and a sandwich. There was always a little fiddle somewhere along the line.
It’s all office work and computers in Bermondsey St now, but I’m here because this is my home. This is where I want to be, all my family are here. There’s loads of locals like me. There’s still plenty of Bermondsey people. I’ve got friends here. We grew up together. It’s where I belong, so I am very lucky. We’ve got a lot here. I walk around, and I go to museums, and I look at buildings. I go to Brighton sometimes just for fish and chips, that’s a very expensive fish and chips!”
“There’s still plenty of Bermondsey people”
Kevin O’Brien at the former Sarsons’ Vinegar Factory in Tower Bridge Rd where he once worked
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Darton’s Nursery Songs
I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Nick Darton whose ancestor William Darton Junior (1781 – 1854) was a publisher in the City of London two hundred years ago and published these charming Nursery Songs on June 15th 1818.
The Juvenile Review described it as ‘A very foolish book, ….. what, for instance, can be more ridiculous than the idea of “a dish running after a spoon,” or the moon being in a fit?’ yet it was published in many editions over the next fifty years and numerous other publishers followed in a similar tradition.
William Darton Junior attended the Friends School in Clerkenwell but was removed at the age of eight to help in his father’s publishing business in Gracechurch St. After two years, he was sent to Ackworth School in Yorkshire before returning to London when he began his apprenticeship with his father at the age of fourteen. He showed early promise as an engraver and was adding his signature his own work even before his full seven years of apprenticeship were up. In 1804, he left his father’s business in his early twenties to set up by himself at Holborn Hill, concentrating on the publication of children’s books, games, educational aids, pastimes and juvenile ephemera.
Let us go the wood, says this pig
What to do there? says this pig & c.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall,
And sown will come cradle
And baby and all.
To bed, to bed, says sleepy head.
Let’s stay awhile says slow,
Put on the pot, says greedy gut.
We’ll sup before we go.
See Saw Margery Daw
Pat it and prick it and mark it with C
And then it will serve for Charley or me.
The Clock struck one,
The mouse came down,
Hickory Diccary Dock.
Who comes here? A Grenadier
What do you want? A pot of beer
Where’s your money? I’ve forgot
Get you gone, you drunken sot.
Cushy Cow bonny, let down thy milk.
Jack & Jill
Baa baaa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Little Jack Horner
The Lion & The Unicorn
Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree
Little boy blue, blow your horn
The cat’s run away with the pudding bag string
There was an old woman, she lived in a shoe
Ding Dong Bell, Pussy Cat’s in the Well
The Man in the Moon
The little husband
There was a little man & he had a little gun
Little Johnny Pringle
Taffy was a Welchman, Taffy was a Thief
Four & Twenty Blackbirds baked in a pye
He’ll sit in a barn
And keep himself warm
And hide his head under
his wing, Poor Thing!
Images courtesy of Nick Darton
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The Invigilators Of Spitalfields
Have you ever wondered what goes through the minds of those implacable silent invigilators who stand sentinel, presiding over the rooms at Dennis Severs House? I spoke with some of them recently when Lucinda Douglas Menzies did their portraits and discovered that, despite their unassuming demeanours, they each had quite a lot to say.
Emily Ball
‘I am studying History of Art at the Courtauld, specialising in Performance Art, its history and evolution from Loïe Fuller to the present day.
Even aside from the performances that take place here, I see Dennis Severs’ House itself is a kind of performance that amounts to a self-portrait. This was his world and his mind, literalised as a house. You are walking into his imagination. He was living his performance through his life which ties in to notions of ‘endurance performance’ – although it was clearly not endurance for him because he seems to have loved it so much!
It became so much more than a performance because it was his life. I think what he did is unique. For a lot of the performances I study there is little physical evidence, but he managed to immortalise his vision in a house and because of the Spitalfields Trust it is saved for everyone for perpetuity. We are really lucky to have it because there are so many performances that are lost, you had to be there or there was no audience so nobody knows about them.
When I experienced one of the tours here, I thought it was going be a guide taking us through the history in each room but actually it was it this astonishing performance that brought to life Dennis Severs’ vision. I loved how startling it was with loud noises, banging on the door and the shouting outside.
If I had to live in a time in the past, I would live at the court of Charles II because of the masques that he staged. I would have loved to have been a part of those, the theatre, the amazing costumes, the fun and the parties.’
Rory Henderson
‘I am a Stage Manager working in theatre production but I did my degree in English Literature, focussing on eighteenth century aestheticism and I came across Dennis Severs’ House through that. There’s actually a course which sends students here to get an idea of the notion of ‘textured performance,’ with performance being alive in the setting of a house. That is what is unique about Dennis Severs’ House.
I came here because I wanted to learn more abut this world and Dennis Severs. I had not realised before that there was such an important site in Queer History on my doorstep and I was keen to have the opportunity to work here.
It’s fun because I work with people from such interesting and different backgrounds and we are all here together in this house, making it come alive for people. Theatre tends to very linear in form but this is beyond anything I have ever experienced. It has been a learning curve to work out how to manoeuvre around so many fragile and old props.
If I had to live in the past – as long as it was not forever – I would go back to the late eighteenth century because I studied it and I already know so much about it.
Then I could discover for myself what the Readers’ Societies and secret gay literary circles were actually like. I would befriend the people I have been studying who created texts exploring gay eroticism. My dissertation was about anonymous Queer Texts – including ‘The Sins of The Cities of the Plain’ – that were published secretly among societies of writers, and how these underground productions were passed between friends until they became widely popular.’
Amy Haigh
‘I am an Artist and Researcher focusing mainly on themes of Ecology, living and working in South East London. I studied at Camberwell and Royal College of Art , graduating from MA Information Experience Design in 2019. At some point on this journey I transitioned from Environmental Graphic Designer to Artist, and now work from my studio on Old Kent Rd to study and retell ecological narratives, mainly through sculpture and installations.
Working at Dennis Severs’ House, I feel inspired to be in a creative space. Although I come from London I did not know of the house and I was intrigued, I find it quite magical. The house and the tours are all about creating a world and storytelling through use of space, lighting and objects, and this is something that I am deeply interested in.
I like working in an environment that feels far away from the outside world, especially when the visitors are completely engaged. It is an inspiring space and I watch how people go round it and what they notice – people often point out things that I had not seen before.
Watching people walk round and being part of that energy is a really great experience. As an artist, I am fascinated by the process of putting something from your imagination into the world and see how it is viewed, what feedback you get.
If I had to live in a time in the past, I would choose to live in the sixties and the seventies. It was an interesting time and the rebellious nature of that era appeals to me.’
Phoebe Wadman
‘I have just finished my Master’s Degree in Queer History so I am especially interested in this aspect of Dennis Severs’ House. I understand that it is not obvious to everyone but I can see it in the way it has been put together, employing lots of secondhand junk to create this ridiculously over-the-top beautiful interior. The act of doing that is Queer in itself.
When I look at the interiors of this house, I think about the history of HIV and AIDS. I like Simon Pettet’s cheeky tiles in the fireplace of the master bedroom, his tile of copulating bunnies at the kitchen window and the shaving bowl he made. I love Simon’s work and it makes me smile to see these personal touches and be reminded that he was here. I love to see the photos of Dennis too. It is a history that is still hidden in many ways. In London, we do not have a memorial to those who died of AIDS and there is little recognition of what happened. But being surrounded here by this personal history is really touching.
If I had to live in the past, I would choose to live in the nineteen-seventies and eighties – which is not that long ago – because I am fascinated by that time in terms of Queer History, the legal recognition of LGBTQ rights, and the sexual and feminist wars. It is an interesting era that has not gone away but speaks a lot to where we are now.’
Lis Gernerd
‘I have a PhD in Eighteenth Century Dress and Material Culture, so I am really excited to work here because Dennis Severs’ House has a playful way of dealing with history. Objects here are not in glass boxes and there is anachronism. The house is curated to make visitors feel they are entering the past in a way that is not conveyed by traditional museums. The point here is not to be authentic but to give a sense of history.
I love the Smoking Room most at Dennis Severs’ House. I love the scent, it is what gets you first. For me, the scent of tobacco is the most emotive in the house. I also love the textiles in the Smoking Room, my favourite embroidery is there upon the velvet frock coat draped over the chair. It is the room with the most stories to tell.
If I had to live in the past, provided I had the money, I would be happy to live in the late eighteenth century because then all of my research questions could be answered. The seventeen-seventies and eighties are definitely my happy place.’
Sean Wilcox
‘In the early seventies, my father took me to see Christopher Plummer play the Duke of Wellington and Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte in ‘Waterloo.’ It was a gateway for me and suddenly the past came to life. Then, in 2002, I sought out Dennis Severs’ House and realised I had to become part of it.
I am fascinated by Dennis Severs’ ability to capture the domestic life of eighteenth century Spitalfields. It is not academic like a museum here, it transports you back in time into an aesthetic context and it caught my imagination.
I find, even though I have been here twenty years, the house has an infinity of moods, changing with the seasons.
My relationship with it continues to evolve all the time too, as I become more aware of the different way the light comes through sash windows at different times of the year. The novelty may have worn off but there are constantly new novelties that appear.’
Ottelien Huckin
‘I am a painter. Before the pandemic my work was figurative and I was interested in the Rococo. I used to paint large canvasses but now I work on small pieces and, over the lockdown, I learnt the technique of Japanning – a seventeenth century process which involves thirty layers of varnish, sanded in between and gilded with gold leaf. I wanted to learn something that would slow my practice down, and I like the idea of creating a decorative object rather than a painting. Maybe it was an existential crisis? Because of the pandemic I wanted to create work that would last for hundreds of years.
I moved to London a year ago in the middle of lockdown and I sought a job that would contribute to my art practice. Dennis Severs’ House speaks to me because it is filled with interesting objects and lots of examples of Japanning. I am half-Dutch and I dabble in Delftware, so that element here attracts me too.
I love the eclecticism of it all. I love coming to work where I am able to study an object and try to understand it, learning about different periods in history. I love the Japanned grandfather clock in the hallway at Dennis Severs’ House, I can stare at it for hours because it is so beautiful.
Simon Pettet’s Delftware appeals to me because I appreciate his approach to craft. There is a respect for tradition yet, equally, he is creating narratives and images that related to his life in Spitalfields. It is a lovely combination of the personal and the historic, and I hope my work is a bit like that too.
If I had to live in the past, I would choose the mid-eighteenth century because I love all the clothes in the master bedroom, especially the flower embroidery. To dress up like that every day would be quite nice but, as a woman, I realise whatever time I chose would not permit me as many freedoms as I enjoy today.’
Sam Keelan
‘I am an artist, mainly working in Photography but also Film. I used to be fascinated by camp horror, but now I have shifted my interest to the uncanny and the banal. Originally, I did my Foundation course at Leeds College of Art then Sculpture at Wimbledon and, as my post graduate, I studied Drawing at the Royal Academy for three years.
Coming from Yorkshire, much of my work is about suburban Yorkshire but with a Queer twist. At lot of my photography and writing concerns layers of artifice and fakery, how it can hold something less spectacular or even mundane beneath.
Dennis Severs’ House fascinates me as this space which is set up as if it had been lived in by a family through four generations, yet it was lived in at the same time. It is both fake and real simultaneously, and there is a curious tension between these things. I think it is quite camp to change your whole house into a set that you live within. It contains both aspiration and tragedy in equal measure. While it is really impressive in its own right, it expresses a longing for something unattainable too.
I appreciate the silence at Dennis Severs’ House. As an invigilator, my job is to make sure people do not talk or touch things. I like being in my own head. It feels like solitude in public because there are a lot of people walking around. It is quite a strange experience.
I love the Drawing Room most – you really feel like you walked in and something has just happened. Also I enjoy the Regency Room because the pink colour palette appeals to me.
If I had to live in an era in the past, I would choose Classical Greece. It might be fun because there was so much debauchery and I am attracted to the homoerotic aspects of that world. I am interested by how the Graeco-Roman aesthetic has been filtered through Georgian culture into the present day, where now you might even find bad plastic classical columns and Roman or Greek busts in a spa.’
Portraits copyright © Lucinda Douglas Menzies
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In Old Bow
Mid-ninenteenth century Gothic Cottages in Wellington Way
Taking advantage of the spring sunshine, Antiquarian Philip Mernick led me on a stroll around the parishes of Bromley and Bow last week so that I might photograph just a few of the hidden wonders alongside the more obvious sights.
Edward II granted land to build the chapel in the middle of the road at Bow in 1320 but the nearby Priory of St Leonard’s in Bromley was founded three centuries earlier. These ecclesiastical institutions were the defining landmarks of the villages of Bromley and Bow until both were absorbed into the expanding East End, and the precise locations of these lost territories became a subject of unending debate for residents. More recently, this was the location of the Bryant & May factory where the Match Girls won landmark victories for workers’ rights in manufacturing industry and where many important Suffragette battles were literally fought on the streets, outside Bow Rd Police Station and in Tomlin’s Grove.
Yet none of this history is immediately apparent when you arrive at the handsome tiled Bow Rd Station and walk out to confront the traffic flying by. In the nineteenth century, Bow was laced with an elaborate web of railway lines which thread the streets to this day and wove the ancient villages of Bromley and Bow inextricably into the modern metropolis.
Bow Rd Station opened in 1902
Bow Rd Station with Wellington Buildings towering over
Wellington Buildings 1900, Wellington Way
Wellington Buildings
Suffragette Minnie Lansbury was imprisoned in Holloway and died at the age of thirty-two
Eighteen-twenties terrace in Bow Rd
Bow Rd
Bow Rd
Bow Rd Police Station 1902
Under the railway arches in Arnold Rd
The former Great Eastern Railway Station and Little Driver pub, both 1879
This house in Campbell Rd was built one room thick to fit between the railway and the road
Arnold Rd once extended beyond the railway line
Arnold Rd
Former Poplar Electricity Generating Station
Railway Bridge leading to the ‘Bow Triangle’
In the ‘Bow Triangle,’ an area surrounded on three sides by railway lines
Handsome nineteenth century villas for City workers in Mornington Grove
Former coach house in Mornington Grove
Bollard of Limehouse Poor Commission 1836 in Kitcat Terrace
Last fragment of Bow North London Railway Station in the Enterprise Rental car park
Edward II gave the land for this chapel of ease in 1320
In the former Bromley Town Hall, 1880
Former Bow Co-operative Society in Bow Rd, 1919
The site of St Leonard’s Priory founded in the eleventh century and believed to have been the origin of Chaucer’s Prioress in the ‘Canterbury Tales’ – now ‘St Leonard’s Adventurous Playground’
Kingsley Hall where Mahatma Ghandi stayed when he visited the East End in 1931
Arch by William Kent (c. 1750) removed from Northumberland House on the Embankment in 1900
Draper’s Almshouses built in 1706 to deliver twelve residences for the poor
The refurbished Crossways Estate, scene of recent alleged election skullduggery
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Viscountess Boudica’s Easter
On Easter Monday, we celebrate our dearly beloved Viscountess Boudica of Bethnal Green who once entertained us with her seasonal frolics and capers but is now exiled to Uttoxeter
She may be no Spring chicken but that never stopped the indefatigable Viscountess Boudica of Bethnal Green from dressing up as an Easter chick!
As is her custom at each of the festivals which mark our passage through the year, she embraced the spirit of the occasion wholeheartedly – festooning her tiny flat with seasonal decor and contriving a special outfit for herself that suited the tenor of the day. “Easter’s about renewal – birth, life and death – the end of one thing and the beginning of another,” she assured me when I arrived, getting right to the heart of it at once with characteristic forthrightness.
I felt like a child visiting a beloved grandmother or favourite aunt whenever I call round to see Viscountess Boudica because, although I never knew what treats lie in store, I was never disappointed. Even as I walked in the door, I knew that days of preparation preceded my visit. Naturally for Easter there were a great many fluffy creatures in evidence, ducks and rabbits recalling her rural childhood. “When my uncle had his farm, I used to put the little chicks in my pocket and carry them round with me,” she confided with a nostalgic grin, as she led me over to admire the wonder of her Easter garden where yellow creatures of varying sizes were gathering upon a small mat of greengrocer’s grass, around a tree hung with glass eggs, as if in expectation of a sacred ritual.
I cast my eyes around at the plethora of Easter cards, testifying to the popularity of the Viscountess, and her Easter bunting and Easter fairy lights that adorned the walls. There could be no question that the festival was anything other than Easter in this place. “As a child, I used to get a twig and spray it with paint and hang eggs from it,” she explained, recalling the modest origin of the current extravaganza and adding, “I hope this will inspire others to decorate their homes.”
“Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is my favourite,” she confessed to me, chuckling in excited anticipation and patting her waistline warily, “I probably will eat a lot of chocolate on Easter Monday – once I start eating chocolate, I can’t stop.” And then, just like that beloved grandmother or favourite aunt, Viscountess Boudica kindly slipped a chocolate egg into my hands, as I said my farewell and carried it off under my arm back to Spitalfields as a proud trophy of the day.
Viscountess Boudica writes her Easter cards
“yellow creatures of varying sizes were gathering upon a small mat of greengrocer’s grass, around a tree hung with glass eggs, as if in expectation of a sacred ritual”
Viscountess Boudica turns Weather Girl to present the forecast for the Easter Bank Holiday – “I predict a dull start with a few patches of sunshine and some isolated showers. In the West Country, it will be nice all day with temperatures between sixty and eighty degrees Farenheit. There will be a small breeze on the coast and sea temperature of around fifty-nine degrees Farenheit.”
Easter blessings to you from Viscountess Boudica!
Viscountess Boudica and her fluffy friends
Be sure to follow Viscountess Boudica’s blog There’s More To Life Than Heaven & Earth
Take a look at
The Departure of Viscountess Boudica
Viscountess Boudica’s Domestic Appliances
Viscountess Boudica’s Halloween
Viscountess Boudica’s Christmas
Viscountess Boudica’s Valentine’s Day
Viscountess Boudica’s St Patrick’s Day
Read my original profile of Mark Petty, Trendsetter
and take a look at Mark Petty’s Multicoloured Coats
