first.
Dancing at the Chatsfield Hotel will take place in the Mirror Ballroom, and will without a shadow of a doubt go on until dawn, so it’s just as well that yours truly has invested in a new pair of slippers. Then into the wee small hours? Well, I’m not one to gossip, but the hotel boasts a number of extravagant suites, each with their own unique style. As to who will have the honour of occupying that most decadent of all, the Dream Suite? Darlings, just watch this space!
Cordelia Confidential,
Daily Express
, 29 April 1921
It’s no longer the done thing, I’m told, to talk about the War. A new generation of the elite, those privileged few with wealth and power, want us to put those bleak years behind us. If one were to believe the gossip columns in the popular press, the only thing this new generation are interested in is partying all night and sleeping all day.
Is this true? I hope not.
In February unemployment exceeded one million. The chances are that it will top two million by the summer. The current miners’ strike is only one of a record number of pay disputes going on all across Britain. Our country is no longer a green and pleasant land, but a land of mass unemployment and mass misery. Too many families who sacrificed their fathers, husbands and sons to the Great War have been rewarded with the humiliation of the dole.
We have been wounded, as a people and a nation, by that War to end all Wars. Until we can reward those who fought in the trenches with a better world, with that simplest of things, a decent wage for a decent day’s work, we cannot forget. We must never forget.
‘Red’ Lancaster,
The People’s Tribune , 29 April 1921
How Justin Met Vera
The foyer at the Chatsfield Hotel was how Justin Yorke imagined the vestibule of a huge Roman villa would be. One enormous gallery, divided into three spaces by two sets of arches and pillars. Though the floors were not tessellated, each one was set with an ornate marble pattern, black and white cheques leading to blue and cream diamonds, leading to brown and red-veined modernistic swirls. The fountain of champagne glasses stacked six tiers high was set up in the first space, the entrance to the hotel, where the privileged guests would register for their privileged suites. They would be taken there in the gilded lift with its plush red seats, for heaven forfend they have to stand for the few minutes it took to climb to their privileged heights. In the meantime, their mountains of luggage would be hoisted up the back stairs by some poor soul sweating in a preposterous outfit that no doubt reminded him of the uniform he’d left off in the fields of France a few years before.
Justin metaphorically rolled his eyes. Five minutes he’d been here, and he was already on his high horse. The point was not to judge, but to observe. Maybe even do as Dex bid him, and try to remember how to enjoy himself. Maybe.
The stage was set up in the space between the two sets of colonnades. Where future guests would take afternoon tea, there was a crush of night-club style tables for the audience. Soft wall lights were shaded by plaster fans and scallop shells. The air was heady with the scent of hothouse flowers, perfume, powder and too many bodies. A haze of cigarette smoke curled around the huge chandelier that formed its own galaxy of stars in the centre of the room. Almost every woman present puffed from a long cigarette holder. Smoking was no longer improper, merely shocking, and shocking was
de rigeur
these days. It was not only faces that were powdered but knees too. Lips were painted. Eyes were heavily underlined. Hemlines were rising.
Before the War, Justin would have been part of the crowd, dancing, laughing, drinking and rutting from dusk till dawn. Looking around the room, at the couture dresses, the silks and satins and diamonds and furs, at the sleek, the too-well-fed and deliberately under-fed, the rich, the famous and the elite that he’d been born
Dancing at the Chatsfield Hotel will take place in the Mirror Ballroom, and will without a shadow of a doubt go on until dawn, so it’s just as well that yours truly has invested in a new pair of slippers. Then into the wee small hours? Well, I’m not one to gossip, but the hotel boasts a number of extravagant suites, each with their own unique style. As to who will have the honour of occupying that most decadent of all, the Dream Suite? Darlings, just watch this space!
Cordelia Confidential,
Daily Express
, 29 April 1921
It’s no longer the done thing, I’m told, to talk about the War. A new generation of the elite, those privileged few with wealth and power, want us to put those bleak years behind us. If one were to believe the gossip columns in the popular press, the only thing this new generation are interested in is partying all night and sleeping all day.
Is this true? I hope not.
In February unemployment exceeded one million. The chances are that it will top two million by the summer. The current miners’ strike is only one of a record number of pay disputes going on all across Britain. Our country is no longer a green and pleasant land, but a land of mass unemployment and mass misery. Too many families who sacrificed their fathers, husbands and sons to the Great War have been rewarded with the humiliation of the dole.
We have been wounded, as a people and a nation, by that War to end all Wars. Until we can reward those who fought in the trenches with a better world, with that simplest of things, a decent wage for a decent day’s work, we cannot forget. We must never forget.
‘Red’ Lancaster,
The People’s Tribune , 29 April 1921
How Justin Met Vera
The foyer at the Chatsfield Hotel was how Justin Yorke imagined the vestibule of a huge Roman villa would be. One enormous gallery, divided into three spaces by two sets of arches and pillars. Though the floors were not tessellated, each one was set with an ornate marble pattern, black and white cheques leading to blue and cream diamonds, leading to brown and red-veined modernistic swirls. The fountain of champagne glasses stacked six tiers high was set up in the first space, the entrance to the hotel, where the privileged guests would register for their privileged suites. They would be taken there in the gilded lift with its plush red seats, for heaven forfend they have to stand for the few minutes it took to climb to their privileged heights. In the meantime, their mountains of luggage would be hoisted up the back stairs by some poor soul sweating in a preposterous outfit that no doubt reminded him of the uniform he’d left off in the fields of France a few years before.
Justin metaphorically rolled his eyes. Five minutes he’d been here, and he was already on his high horse. The point was not to judge, but to observe. Maybe even do as Dex bid him, and try to remember how to enjoy himself. Maybe.
The stage was set up in the space between the two sets of colonnades. Where future guests would take afternoon tea, there was a crush of night-club style tables for the audience. Soft wall lights were shaded by plaster fans and scallop shells. The air was heady with the scent of hothouse flowers, perfume, powder and too many bodies. A haze of cigarette smoke curled around the huge chandelier that formed its own galaxy of stars in the centre of the room. Almost every woman present puffed from a long cigarette holder. Smoking was no longer improper, merely shocking, and shocking was
de rigeur
these days. It was not only faces that were powdered but knees too. Lips were painted. Eyes were heavily underlined. Hemlines were rising.
Before the War, Justin would have been part of the crowd, dancing, laughing, drinking and rutting from dusk till dawn. Looking around the room, at the couture dresses, the silks and satins and diamonds and furs, at the sleek, the too-well-fed and deliberately under-fed, the rich, the famous and the elite that he’d been born
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