Seventy Four Year Old Time Capsule.

Scrolling through my Tumblr dashboard this morning I came across one of my favourite posts ever. Now, I must admit, I do not know the source of this amazing information, or the photos that accompany it, but it was just too good not to share with you.

In 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Mme De Florian locked the doors of her Parisian apartment for the last time...and never came back. What she left behind her was a snap shot of time, portraying the life of a citizen of the Pigalle quarter just before a world changing event. The apartment was rediscovered after Mme De Florian's death some seventy years later, by her descendants, who described the discovery as if they were "stumbling into the castle of sleeping beauty".

The last photo is a painting of Mme De Florian's grandmother, the famous Parisian actress Marthe De Florian. Marthe was a lover of the artist, Giovanni Boldini, and their love letters were also found, tied with ribbon, in the apartment!

What a find! I can hardly imagine, if I left my house for seventy years, it would be this glamorous!

Goodwood Revival 2012

Oh where to start? Words cannot express how much I absolutely love this event. This event was where my decision to dress/live(ish) vintage was born; when I was thirteen I saw beautiful ladies and gentlemen walking around just looking so stylish and sophisticated I aspired to be just like them. Ever since then we, that is the family and I, try to go every year, but this has been hard for me, what with the move to university up north. So it was an immense pleasure to go this year! Well, we sort of went...we went into the 'car park' where they had moved the majority of the stalls, the fair ground and the hair dressing parts - better known as the parts where myself and mother spend most of the day! Our logic worked that as we had not had to pay for tickets we had thus saved around £100 (and 3 gin and tonics thanks to the Gordon's vouchers!) and so needed to spend that amount to balance the books out. My personal highlight of the day was the Chap Olympiad, which was put on three times in the day, just after brunch, lunch and tea. I loved this event so much I am going to dedicate an entire entry to it, so stay tuned for that! I am also going to be dedicating an entry to my purchases as I think they need a special mention because they were absolute bargains! Hopefully next year I shall get a ticket to go into the show ground as I do enjoy some of the racing and the general atmosphere, but this was the perfect supplement!

For now then I shall leave you with some photos of the day...

The ladies working miracles on vintage styled hair - supplied by my old friends the Vintage Hair Lounge

Some of the action moved outside to where we were

I absolutely fell in love with this suit

Anyone got £2.8million spare?

I think that's a Hurricane, a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt but don't quote me on that... 

Chaps & Chappettes looking splendid, but more on them later...

And finally, what I wore:

Topshop Jumper (I've got to guess from 2009)

Freddies of Pinewood Dungarees

Vintage sunglasses bought at the event - up coming blog on that business soon!

Roxie Reviews: 'Land Girls'

L-R: Joyce, Iris and Connie

Now in it's third series 'Land Girls' has been quite a success story for afternoon television on the BBC. As with all afternoon television there has to be a little more drama than real life, and series three had the familiar threat of murder surrounding it. I was an avid fan of the first series of 'Land Girls' which showed the four newcomers to the farm go through the seasons; after the birth of an illegitimate baby and the murder of the lord of the manor (after an affair, no less) it looked as though the series was going to be a one off. Now, I won't lie to you, I can't really remember the second series as I didn't think it was that good. Something about the illegitimate baby being kidnapped by the whole of the American army I think...

Maybe I am biased to preferring the third series to the other two because I am a teensy weensy bit in love with one of the new characters. Meet Danny Sparks...

Played by Joe Armstrong (son of Alun Armstrong) the character is basically just Joe's character of Allan A Dale of Robin Hood fame in a suit and with a gun, although I'm pretty sure Allan wouldn't slap around his ex fiance and try to kill her!

Each series sees a few more girls to replace the ones who left. This series the newcomer was Iris; in my opinion I don't think she had enough screen time at all as the series remained focussed on the old girls Connie and Joyce. Ironically none of the land girls are my favourite characters although their leader (I'm not sure if there is a correct term for her historically, please correct me in a comment if you do know) Esther remained top of my leader board. Part mother hen, part boss Esther has a ethical storyline that modern woman often take for granted: she fell pregnant by the village baddie and had the agonising decision to make whether to abort it or face the shame of having to leave the service and bring up a baby as a single mother.

Esther Reeves, played by Susan Cookson

There were two main storylines this series, one concerning Joyce and another surrounding Connie and her shady east end past (gangsters in a little northern village? Really?). The Joyce one was much more realistic whilst the other brought the drama everyone craves in a afternoon viewing. We had met Joyce's husband in the second series (maybe first too, I forget these things) as he departed back to the war with the RAF bombing command, and in this series the couple must fight their own battle through what, sadly, happened to so many men when they returned from war as John suffers from servere shell shock. Connie, Danny and Rev. Henry were the drama for the show. Would Connie choose a new life with vicar Henry, make scones and do all those new wifey things? Or would she go back Danny and an exciting but dangerous life of crime? Personally I couldn't choose, both men are very handsome! (Oh hush, I'm not that fickle! But really, very handsome men.)

So, what do I think of 'Land Girls' in the end? To be honest, absolutely loved it! The fashions (check out the dresses in the end photo!), the hairstyles, the over-the-top-soap-style storylines all added up to a brilliant show. One thing though, Mr BBC, please put it back to a better time of half five because it really didn't deserve to be put at the awkward time of ten past two if it comes back for a fourth series (oh please say it will!).

Roxie Reviews: 'Odette' by Jerrard Tickell



Odette Samson (or one of her other countless names used throughout her life) is possibly the most famous allied woman in history. Her work as an SOE spy during 1942 and her mixture of French patronage (and eternal grace granted to so many French women) and English bravery in the face of the atrocities implicated by the Germans awarded her George Cross at the end of the war.

The book 'Odette' by Jerrard Tickell was first published in 1949, and was written with the aid of the great woman herself. This has allowed her 'character' to be unbelievably true to life with the anecdotes conveying the exact feelings and emotions felt by Odette during her war. The French have a strong characteristic of being incredibly loyal to their country and people, and even though adopting England as her home, Odette has an overwhelming connection to her homeland and it's freedom. Even at the end of the book when she is saved by the Americans from the horror of Ravensbrück she keeps her gentle manners by telling the SS soldiers that accompanied her to run (most likely for their lives) - this is an overall theme through the book that just because the soldiers were German does not necessarily make them Nazi, and they were just following orders from the evil above. Her sense of forgiveness is amazing.

The majority of the book is set in France or within her three imprisonments, with very little being set in England or her life before her SOE work; I can only guess that being having being written in 1949 a lot of the work done in Baker Street was still top secret information. The chapters set in France were very fast paced and I did find them quite confusing to follow (probably not helped by my lack of French speaking skills and a few pieces of information being in French) but the speed only reflected the dangerous excitement experienced by Odette and her comrades. At this point in the novel (is that the genre? Is it a biography? 'Faction' before Capote's 'In Cold Blood'?) Raoul - or Peter Churchill, who became Odette's second husband in 1947 - was my favourite character as he was that 'hero' figure, reminding me of a gallant knight from a Medieval folktale mixed with a bit of James Bond's suave style. However when Odette was imprisoned in the Parisian jail of Fresnes she met a German priest (who was an active soldier stationed at the prison) named Father Paul Heinerz; Father Paul was Odette's humane rock in Fresnes (which was unusual as Odette didn't believe in God, although she occasionally prayed in desperate times) and characterised that war didn't mean your enemy was evil and it affected all walks of life - he was German under the boot of the Third Reich.

So, overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book thanks to the extraordinary real-life story aided by great writing. As a Hamsphire girl I had always had an interest in the county's association with the spy networks across occupied Europe but I had never actively sort out any research on it, but I definitely will now! 'Odette' is the perfect book for anyone with an interest in World War Two, great women through history or who just loves a great adventure.