I stood outside The People’s Palace on The Mile End road, one hot July afternoon in 1980. Somehow standing there I could feel her presence on that wintry evening all those years ago. She would have been hesitant, afraid, and yet thrilled. She would have walked up those few enlightening steps, gripped tightly and disapprovingly by her mother. Herbert Marks would have stood beside the pillared archway, smiling, his face lit to the cold night air… Dear Herbert whose stomach ulcers in time would become the better of him… was the most sweetest of men. They would have entered this great hall arm in arm and performed with an exacting elegance under chandeliers that sparkled like a thousand tiny gems. Here gowns would have been filled with paraded ladies of charm, whilst men squinted through solitary eyeglasses and ordered waiters and drinks around.
In my hand was her silver pendant, it gleamed at me from its loneliness. It had hung around her neck that evening… a heart shaped pendant that opened to a tiny portrait of her… later she had added a picture of her beloved Charles.
The stone steps leading to the terraced balustrade were worn now with the progress of time and footsteps, and the archway of pillared marble, chaffed and pitted by the chilling winter winds that rose from the east of the City… and as I stood there with my thoughts… a shiver ran through my veins.
A Tram Ride from Forster Square, Bradford, Yorkshire, England in 1902. One of the many films of Mitchell and Kenyon available from The British FilmInstitute.
Enid Stamp Taylor… And friends! Enid and two cherished companions on holiday at Portmeirion North Wales in the August of 1937. The holiday village of Portmeirion was the setting for the famous TV series of ’The Prisoner’ starring Patrick McGoohan. Enid is pictured snapped by family members ‘The Poritts’… The architect Clough Williams-Ellis was the brainchild behind ‘Portmeirion’ – the Italianate village known as ‘The Xanadu of Wales’… and it’s likely he was a friend to Enid.
The evacuation of London’s children was a very key moment in the 1940′s, and here Enid Stamp Taylor plays her part in this promotional picture taken in her Park Lane apartment. ‘Standing in’ as an evacuee is Enid’s daughter Robin Anne. The evacuation of London’s children to far-flung parts of the United Kingdom is a subject that has been well debated over the years. It was a move thankfully that could never be contemplated today.
To come close to her world… take the serpentine path across Hyde Park, and as you walk, think of her. She would have walked this path, just as you. She would have paused, and looked upon the golden yellow of spring daffodils and the racing heart of early bluebells. You are seeing what her eyes saw. The same birds are singing… and you are so close to her… that you can hear her silent feet over green fields, and taste the sweet smell of Hawthorn blossom that fills your soul… and when you come to a bend in the path, where she too, saw the first shimmer of April blue upon the lake, I know… that you, have only to turn your head… to see her walking beside you.
The Hoax began in 1917, or was it really a hoax? The cousins Elsie Wright (16) and Francis Griffiths (10) maintained throughout their lives, right up until old age, that they had clearly photographed fairies at a Beck in Yorkshire, England. Such was the supposed deception that their resulting pictures have fooled the very best experts in the photographic field, and the mighty Kodak Company would not give any sort of judgement as to the authenticity of the subjects within the plates, even Conan Doyle was convinced the photographs were genuine.
“At least Elsie [Wright] gave us a myth which has never harmed anyone and it looks like continuing to fascinate and entertain well into the future. How many professed photographers can claim to have equaled her achievement with the first photograph they ever took?” Geoffrey Crawley.
Buggleskelly Today… The year of 1937 began the birth of Buggleskelly, the mythical Irish railway station set on a stretch of disused line near Basingstoke in Hampshire England. The setting was for the film Oh, Mr. Porter starring Will Hay, Moore Marriot, and Graham Moffat… The film was to become a classic!
A tumbledown railway station, representing Buggleskelly was built at an old halt, and even during filming the line was being taken up by The Basingstoke and Alton Railway Company. The film itself is one of the funniest of British comedies in the Music Hall tradition of the 1930′s. The location of the run-down mythical Buggleskelly station was very overgrown when we visited there with our cameras in 1996, but it was still possible to make out where the booking office, rail lines, and signal box had once stood. There are more pictures taken at the location on http://twitpic.com/photos/patricallaghan3
Enid Stamp Taylor… And friends! Enid and two cherished companions on holiday at Portmeirion North Wales in the August of 1937. The holiday village of Portmeirion was the setting for the famous TV series of ’The Prisoner’ starring Patrick McGoohan. Enid is pictured snapped by family members ‘The Poritts’… The architect Clough Williams-Ellis was the brainchild behind ‘Portmeirion’ – the Italianate village known as ‘The Xanadu of Wales’… and it’s likely he was a friend to Enid.
