Times change

"Blue, prepare to have your socks knocked off at Kips Bay ..." wrote a commenter last week about my misgivings after visiting the Atlanta Symphony Show House, and I must admit I went to the Kips Bay 41st Annual Decorator Show House with a certain anticipation which was, to a degree, repaid. 

There always is, or should be, excitement about seeing who is doing what in show houses, and from that point of view Kips Bay did not disappoint, though my socks were not, as threatened blown off. The kitchen was superb, but show house kitchens always are, and the dining room a marvel of art, decoration, atmosphere, and practicality. In place of an actual sideboard a deconstructing bronze sculpture based on the form of a sideboard, that made me wish it was a sideboard – a superb piece that I wish I could have photographed. Above the table hung a tree branch and writhing neon pendant that was the best of its kind. I'm not really sure how the room would work for a few old fogies who need more than atmosphere to light their ways to the cognac, but I'll forgive that.

High-gloss, saturated color was much in evidence, as was the ongoing love-affair with 50's and 60's Italian furniture, and the strained-thru-SoCal 70's flea-market upgrades, though there was, that I saw, thankfully nary a rumor of Eames. Yet the neutral room persists: white on cream, white on beige, white on white, white on wood, white on tedium. Really? Still? 

Photography was not permitted so in writing this I am working on what I remember four days afterwards. Robert Brown's room, the first (I am told) at Kips Bay by an Atlanta decorator and literally the first room which one saw – or rather could have seen had it not been used for ticket sales and queueing – sadly as a result doesn't stand out, as it should, in my memory. Brown is a excellent decorator who, in my opinion, was underserved by the show house for, clearly, if a decorator earns a place that place should be respected and not be screened from view by a queue of ticket buyers.

Two adjoining rooms upstairs, the connecting doors carefully kept closed, were, for me, the yin and yang of the show house – one, a bedroom, an anachronism, a throw-back even, (remember, personal opinions here) by the West coast decorator presently masquerading as Ingres' Grande Odalisque in a Bath Towel in advertisements for Scalamandré, and the other an appreciation of the cool, friends–with–benefits sophistication of modern life. This is not to say I disliked either room – quite the contrary, in fact – but their juxtaposition set me thinking about the modern producers of mass-taste, those connections between decorating, TV and licensing.

At the top of the house, opening on to a beautiful roof terrace and with carp-filled pool, a luminously spacious family room with its lavender and grey coloration, silver blown-glass logs in a steel and mirror firebox below a big-assed TV, was the favorite despite that most repellant of furnishing textiles, a hair-on-hide rug.

Licensing is a topic of significance that I shall wait to tackle more fully in another post – when I'm not sitting here, thoroughly bad-tempered, impatient, woozy, and hacking and wheezing from the worst airplane cold I've ever had. I will say, however, that a few years back I saw, and I wish I'd kept it, on the back of a very old Architectural Digest, a pattern that was at the time being marketed as a design, recolored for modern times, by a well-known interior decorator. Call me naive if you wish, but I was shocked at it. I remain shocked when I think of how fabric houses and furniture manufacturers are pushing out collections of quite ordinary and derivative collections distinguished only by the celebrity name on the label. How we got here is worth considering – some other time.  

No, I didn't come away de-socked from Kips Bay, was never breathless from excitement – from the stairs, yes, certainly – and to be candid was underwhelmed by a couple of big names. Subtlety to the point of tedium or invisibility is not for me. I thought, though, as also a friend texted me to say, that these are not the grand old days of Buatta, Hampton and Parish-Hadley. Perhaps that is not a bad thing. Times change. 

But not always for the good. Though it happened months ago, it was only this weekend that I learned, heartbreakingly, that Archivia Books has closed. It occurred to me as I stood there, amazed that this beautiful shop has gone, that I am part of the problem. How proud I have been of saving money by going to Amazon to buy books when clearly if I have the money to buy such books I could afford to pay full price. Why would I? Look at the desolation above and wonder if keeping a local business going is worth it. 

Times change, indeed.


For photographs of some of the rooms go here. 

Why do we bother?

Every year I say that it was not worth the schlep (driving to a designated parking location, waiting for a shuttle to take us to the house and, after feeling immensely let down by what we have seen, reversing the journey and arriving home in a bad mood and out of pocket). Nonetheless, each year we go back and I must say it was with some trepidation because of the negative rumors surrounding it, that Sunday afternoon, together with three friends, we visited the Atlanta Symphony Decorators' Show House again.

I know in the world of decorating one is supposed never to be critical – amazing really when one considers the ever-churning rumor mill – so let me say only that there were highlights. Nothing OMG or I'm Loving This though I did hear a nostalgic Remember when? remark about when decorators used to learn their trade as assistants to the big names.

One such highlight was a basement room done entirely in its own products by IKEA – actually, an eyeopener for here was a room stylish, low-budget, livable, contemporary, and completely in the wrong place or, if not in the wrong place, it was being viewed by the wrong clientele (which I suppose is the same thing). I heard many a snobbish comment but I tell you honestly if I were starting out with little money I would seriously consider, after seeing that room, using IKEA products for my first flat. The disconnect is that most of the people visiting the show house are not just starting out and, frankly, stressing the inexpensiveness of it all, as the docents did, is not what thrills the oh, my dear lord! crowd avidly reeling in faux ticket shock. A highlight, if a strangely misplaced one.

"I do," said our friend, when I quipped "every A-list gay in Atlanta will want a version of this room. "As do I," I replied. We were looking at the brightest highlight of them all: on the lower level, a moody masculine, bodice-ripper of a room by Michael Habachy.

It is clear to me that Mr Habachy is one of Atlanta's most original designers and one who, with nightclubs, spas and restaurants on his resume, brings a completely different understanding of atmosphere and sociability to residential design – not for him the pallid prettiness that suffuses Atlanta decorating. A room where two men in tuxedos might sit, manhattan and negroni to hand, on their long-awaited wedding night, laughing about their first honeymoon thirty-five years before.

It was thanks to Uber we drove up the torrent that was the driveway to the suburban faux chateau hosting the show house (not for us, this time, the drive to the designated parking spot and then the shuttle). I feel I've seen more than my share of these houses, thus I cannot tell you I was impressed by the architecture inside or out. I'm just bored stiff with sheet-rocked grandeur. As to authenticity ... well, a tired joke at the best of times.

I do ask myself why we bother with show houses and I strongly feel that, year in, year out, its always the same. But it could be I just need to get out more – and we are, for in a couple of weeks time we're going to visit the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club forty-first annual Decorator Show House – neither of us has done it before though we have tried a few times to get their schedule matched with ours and the one time previous to this we did so, they had to cancel at the last minute. Let's hope it isn't another "why did we bother?"


Photos of Michael Habachy's room unattributed on the card I picked up so if anyone can tell me the name of the photographer I would be grateful and certainly would add it to this post.

Standing stitch stark naked on the corner of Hollywood and Vine

"Have I ever told you about Boom-Boom?" She had of course, a while back, but I said would love to hear it again. The drinks were ordered – for her a gin and tonic, Tanqueray of course, and for me a Woodford on the rocks – we sat, my erstwhile professor and I, near the window in the bar in the sun undisturbed by the lunchtime murmur from the dining room and the also by the barman who, once he's got our drinks sorted, knows now to let us be whilst we catch up, toast each other, and settle down to a good old natter. We'll eat eventually, conversation being the point not food, and we'll eat very slowly.

"Years ago," she began, "I was den mother to a crowd of students visiting Rome ... it's odd how after all these years they remember you ... completely at a loss ...  all their faces, hundreds of 'em over the years, have blended and, and ... when that twenty-something-year-old is now a grandmother ... but one or two stand out and you cannot but wonder what happened to them."

A bowl of soup – surprisingly, for the time of year, split-pea – half a Cobb salad, and veal in lemon butter caper sauce made their way between our glasses, the bread basket, the butter, and our cutlery, silently brought by the barman, who also, when we asked after her, delight and pride written all over his face, showed us photos on his phone of his months-old daughter. There she was, smiling, blue eyes like her dad's crinkling with happiness and, with a swipe of his finger, laughing and looking straight out at the happy man taking her photograph. There is something entrancing about a baby's laugh, even one unheard – the sound of heaven on earth.

"Well, Miss Kate" said Boom-Boom on her return to the lodging at end of the afternoon, "I could stand stitch-stark naked on the corner of Hollywood and Vine and no-one would give me a second glance, but here in Rome ... " It seems she – curious as any nice Jewish girl well might be in St Peter's Basilica – had spotted an empty confessional and had dropped in for a chat with the priest. Such a meeting of minds was it that the young man had whisked her out of the church and spent the afternoon showing her around Rome, after first taking her for a drink at the bar in the Basilica. "Note," said my prof, "not in the Vatican but in the Basilica. Not many people believe that, but it's true and I've seen it and it's right there on the left as you go into St Peter's – and you need a priest to take you there."

As I say, the first time I heard the story, a while back, the Celt and I went looking for the bar – curious as you might imagine and fully prepared to be as thirsty for a warming spirit as a cold wet day in a gloomy basilica can make one. It's not that we pushed open every door we came across – for most were locked or behind a barrier – but there was one that seemed to be in the right place and, if I remember rightly, had grapes and vines carved into its lintel. But alas it was a door that did not open to us, nor has it yet. It stands near Antonio Canova's Monument to the Stuarts.

As my prof used to say to many an unwilling student "you can check if you wish, I might be lying to you."

Photo of the Monument to the Stuarts in St Peter's, Rome, from Wikipedia Commons

Reading on the rug

The Emperor's New Clothes, illustration for Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales, 1935

Being intellectually lazy, I've never been able, with any patience, to take part in the discussion that has marched on since at least the nineteenth-century, about the distinction between fine arts and the decorative arts – with fine artists claiming for themselves not only the Olympian heights, but also the right to be considered philosophers, sociologists, psychiatrists and priests. I do not agree with assessments that give fine artists a special place in society, other than recognizing their status as producers of commercial artifacts that might or might not either do well as investments or, at the other end of the continuum, look good above a sofa or on the coffee table. As to the product itself, abstract art bores me silly and conceptual art leaves me wondering which of us – the artist or myself – is demented.

In other words, to me it's all "Emperor's New Clothes" and prejudiced as I am, I'm fully prepared to condemn that which I don't understand. (I may of course, like a modern pundit or politician, apologize for it later.)

Two days ago, I opened a new Amazon box and found the most thrilling book of my year so far, In Search of Rex Whistler: His Life and Work. Hitherto easily dismissed as a decorative painter, Whistler's status in twentieth-century art can, thanks to this excellent book, be reassessed and, finally, understood. I'm not going to write about the hi-jacking of twentieth-century art by the likes of Clement Greenberg and the nationalistic assumptions therein – I could, but I'll leave it for another day. Rex Whistler sits firmly in my personal pantheon of those who draw and can explain an idea in clear visual language with imagination, wit, and without gobbledygook. I cannot recommend this biography of one of my favorite artists more highly, but with a publication date of 2012, I suspect I'm preaching to the quire and y'all probably have your copies already. I keep being pulled from the excellent text by the superb illustrations, one of which is a double-page fold-out of the Plas Newydd mural – an absolute delight.

The Triumph of Neptune, a carpet design by Rex Whistler for Edward James, 1934

A friend who is remodeling his place asked me if I would have wooden floors again and I immediately said I would not – at least, I qualified, not in the form of planks that just go from here to there. My preference for floors, be they of wood or stone, is that they should have more than a length of shoe-mold or baseboard to relate them to the architecture that surrounds them and I feel also that nowadays most floors, carpets and rugs do not relate, other than superficially. That said, there are times when it is a blessing not to draw attention to the shape of rooms and camouflage is called for – despite Rose Cumming's put-down of "'ere to 'ere," it is sometimes the best option and occasionally that choice is not solely aesthetic. Sometimes it's about acoustics or perhaps, more usually, what you can afford. 

An expanse of floor, be it wood, stone, or both, is very satisfying when, for my taste, it is not broken up with too many rugs. In fact, space, illusory or real, is a modern luxury and one too easily ignored given the pressures to be good consumers. That said, two few soft surfaces and there will be problems with noise. I tried to keep away from what one should do and make sure our friend understood that I was talking about my preferences not rules. So, there are no rules, he said, making me realize I'd rattled on a bit too much. I had to say that there are rules and most of them are not to be broken but, to get into that discussion was going to require another Bloody Mary (it was brunch) and likely he'd end up even more confused. I really should have just said yes in the first place or had a Virgin Mary (I know, I know... ). 

I like floors, carpets and rugs to have borders – I like borders, both personal and aesthetical. Our hall rug (not shown to advantage in the photograph below, I confess) – a faded palimpsest when lit from above, with the faintest of arabesques ghosting through each part – is a total treasure both in its beauty and its associations of bright sunlight on the Silk Road to Samarkand. It should, I feel sometimes, be on a wall, but rugs are made for the floor and it goes so well with the Turgeot map and the 1950s bench.

The living room carpet, on the other hand, could be a length of broadloom cut to a standard size. I bought it as a wool-and-silk-hand-knotted-in-Tibet carpet and though without a border, it is equally subtle, though simpler in design. And while it might at first glance be a length of broadloom, the pattern ends at each edge equally, with is no slicing through a motif. (I know in the photograph it looks like a ploughed field, and I've tried to explain to "the help" what I want, but neither of us, it seems, feels we can spend our days smoothing the pile with a silk scarf.)

Seeing again the image of Whistler's The Triumph of Neptune carpet set me thinking about the occasion a week or so ago when I attended a showroom presentation about new rug and carpet lines. Sitting there, I got to wondering why viscose – not the best fibre for high-traffic areas – is so prevalent in decorative textiles. Further, I wondered why one would specify a fibre the production of which is allegedly very polluting, and also who is designing carpets nowadays?

What I should wonder about is not who, but how carpets are designed – a subject I'd like to return to in the near future given that most carpet and rugs (beyond the time-honored orientals) designs look remarkably alike to me, even those from the branded collections of celebrity interior designers.

As I looked, apropos something else, through Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier's excellent book about Jean-Michel Frank, I came across four rug designs that seem to me to be the antithesis of modern carpet and rug design – original artworks for the floor, they show how – in the hands of an artist (in this case trained in theatre) – how delightful, original, frivolous even, rugs or carpets can be.

The Emperor's New Clothes, illustration for Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales, and The Triumph of Neptune, a carpet design by Rex Whistler for Edward James from In Search of Rex Whistler: His Life and Work, Hugh and Mirabel Cecil, Frances Lincoln, 2012.

Rug designs by Christian Bérard from Jean-Michel Frank: The Strange and Subtle Luxury of the Parisian Haute-Monde in the Art Deco Period, Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier, Rizzoli, 2008.

A legendary house

It is facile to use the word "legendary" about Villa Fiorentina, but it definitely fits this house that has become part of design-bloggers' collective consciousness – and one that for many is the last word in elegance and discretion. Well, elegant it was, discrete too, if only in decoration and furnishing, and it may still be, but, judging by the photograph below, the discretion and elegance of today is not that of yesterday. I make no judgements.

After and before

Now and then

Before and after

Over the past couple of years I have written quite a bit about Villa Fiorentina and its owner so I shall not bore you with repetition here. If you wish to read my essays on this subject look in the Labels list on the right and click on "Roderick Cameron" and "Villa Fiorentina".

To see what the inside of Fiorentina was like go here, here, and for a more comprehensive look at Fiorentina and its owners, here in the Labels list to the right. 

A correspondent sent me the first photograph and link to the architect's site yesterday and you can imagine how grateful I am. Thank you TT.

The new photographs from here (Bruno Bolzoni Architecte D.P.L.G.) Attributions for other photographs where known will be found in the Labels list.

Books

As far as I know only one bookshop survives in Atlanta – that is, within the part of town where I live. So, when I want to evaluate an interior design book, I rarely go the the bookshop – I go instead to one of two shops, neither of which is a bookshop – one is furniture store that sells interesting (frequently Belgian) books about European and American design, and the other a not-so-run-of-the-mill gift shop whose inventory always includes the latest designer monographs. I find little point going to the Big Box Bookstore (the single-surviving bookshop mentioned above) despite it being down the street. Too sad, too tired and the model hasn't changed since my father-in-law set up what was then Waterstone's in what had been the Conran's Habitat building in Boston in the 80s. 

A charismatic man was the Celt's father, who would have been horrified at what has happened to publishing since his time. When attired in his formal kilt, arrayed with sporran and sgian dubh, glass of single malt in his hand, he was the most interesting of public speakers, charming the knickers of his audience (as the Brits say) with a combination of erudition and humor – but, I digress...

Buying books online for me is a double-edged sword – the lower price is always welcome but increasingly I'm dissatisfied with bent corners and imperfections in book jackets caused by shrink-wrapping and (occasionally) inadequate packaging. In fact, there's a book in a box in the hall right now, awaiting its journey back to the post office. It's not being returned for the reasons above but because it is a big let-down – another disadvantage of buying online if one has not first assessed the book firsthand beforehand. 

"Order them online," suggested the Celt as I picked up both Fritz von der Schulenberg's and Tino Zervudachi's books. But I'm not a fan of delayed gratification, so as a compromise, I bought one immediately – no reduction there – and the other, online that evening. Thankfully, it arrived in perfect condition. Books other than interior design books – smaller books – tend to arrive in a better condition, which suggests there might need to be a reassessment of packaging methods in some executives' minds. It is, after all, a simple design problem and could be solved very quickly. No biggie, as we used to say. 

We all know, or should know, Fritz von der Schulenberg's work. One of the best photographers of interiors there is, whose photographs I've known since I bought my first issue of The World of Interiors (December 1982 - January 1983) – and whose book I very much looked forward to. When I saw Luxurious Minimalism: Elegant Interiors in the Rizzoli bookstore earlier this year I was not disappointed but, as usual, decided to buy it online, which I eventually didn't. 

Two things impressed me most – first, the delicious silk(-like) covered boards and spine, gold stamped without a jacket (luxurious minimalism, indeed), and second, the table of contents which heralds a fundamental lesson in interior decoration written and illustrated by the best: 

The Art of Elegance, an introductory essay by Fritz von der Schulenberg; followed by Rhythm with Nicholas Haslam and John Minshaw; Colour with John Stefanidis; Light with David Collins; Space with Anthony Collett and Annabelle Selldorf; Texture with William Sofield; Composition with Axel and Boris Vervoordt and Robert Kime. 

Rather than scan from this book I photographed it lying the desk in our new office. In case you're wondering, the wood is zebra wood. 

A quotation from the Foreword by David Mlinaric suffices to explain to those who have not heard – I cannot imagine there are many – of Tino Zervudachi. This Foreword is also an elegant assessment of the present-day state of interior design (not a negative assessment by any means), and well worth reading rather than being passed over on the way to the pictures. It's a short quotation but one that shows how young this man was when he became successful and now, not quite fifty, is the owner of the firm.  

".... Tino's work shows both a respect for the existing or the old and an enthusiasm for the new. It never crosses the threshold of excess and yes is glamorous and quietly luxurious. Tino was brought up in London and moved to Paris to start a branch of our design company, Mlinaric, Henry & Zervudachi, in 1991, when he was 27. He had joined the studio in London when he was 19..." 

Tino Zervudachi: A Portfolio is big book, beautifully illustrated, very well-written and makes clear that Continental interior design, at its best, is elegant, cultured and dapper. Actually, the exactly the same as the best American design, but with a completely different accent. 

None of the interior design books I've gone through in the bookstore have appealed to me for a long, long time. There seems to be plenty of majestic titling belying a dearth of substantive content. Also, it is apparent that mid-century or early-twentieth-century furniture still plays a role in the minds of designers who wish to appear original. So this is a refreshing change. Either – or better, both – of these books illustrates how to live in the present whilst appreciating the past, and neither book rigidly defines what that present might be. I highly recommend them.

I was not asked to review either of the books but have done so purely out of the pleasure of finally finding books worth buying.

Giggles, how to grow potatoes, royal burials and ... has anyone here seen Kelly?

The numbingly damp cold of early spring in England seeping through every layer of tweed, leather and wool, did nothing to lessen my enthusiasm for my first visit to Windsor Castle. For someone who is interested in architecture and interior design it is perhaps surprising I'd waited so long – especially having lived (a long time ago) within an hour's train journey. But I knew the castle well from photographs, or so I thought.

Queen Mary's Doll House is surprisingly uninteresting – dimly lit, behind glass, rather twee and maybe, just maybe, methinks, I'm too old and cynical for it and, anyway, I have the book. I moved on to the small exhibition of portraits of the Queen in The Drawings Gallery. Celebrating both the Diamond Jubilee and the anniversary of the Coronation, the exhibition The Queen: Portraits of a Monarch, was more interesting than I thought it would be given how familiar the Queen's face is, but... and I know this is not an original thought... despite these portraits being of the Monarch rather than the person it is impossible, I feel, for anyone born in the United Kingdom to disassociate the person from the role – especially a person one has never met, yet one feels one knows well, despite being someone who has never given a media interview in her life. Nonetheless, the surprise of the exhibition was the portrait by Lucien Freud – not just surprising in how small it is but also in how much I liked it this powerful depiction, with so luscious a paint layer, defiantly, I thought, facing the glitter of Warhol on the opposite wall.

The State Rooms, the work of King George IV and his architect Jeffry Wyattville, are some of the most magnificent rooms I've ever walked through, except perhaps for the Vatican Museum, but they are more corridor-like than photographs show. Unless one is attending an Easter Court, these rooms are never seen as the photograph of the Crimson Drawing Room below suggests, for most of the year the room is divided by a strip of red carpet and rope barriers. Perhaps walking along a red carpet rolled out at one's feet offers a certain psychological succour, for none of this detracts from the magnificence of the decor: gilded ceiling and cornice; crimson draperies matching the upholstery of the walls and the gilded furniture; inlaid floor replacing that lost (as, indeed, was all the decoration of these rooms) in the fire of the 1990s, and the chandeliers, so big breathtakingly large and brilliant as to be almost, in their sublimity, invisible.

There is much for the eye to light upon in the Crimson Drawing Room and for me the most magical were the portraits of Queen Elizabeth (which one sees first) and her husband, "the old King" as I know him, George VI on either side of the fireplace, by Gerald Kelly.

"At the same time the King and Queen were both having much more formal state portraits painted by Gerald Kelly, a distinguished portraitist and later president of the Royal Academy. Kelly had been lodging at Eton while he worked at Windsor Castle, but after the outbreak of war he gratefully accepted an invitation from the Queen to move in Windsor Castle until he finished his work. The Royal Family were rather surprised that the artist ended up living for much of the war with them in the Castle. Fortunately he was witty and entertaining. The historian Kenneth Rose noted, 'It was said that to prolong his stay he would steal down to the studio at dead of night to erase the previous day's work.' The paintings were finally ready to go on show after the war ended in 1945. That year he was also given a knighthood – the band at the investiture played 'Anybody Here Seen Kelly?' " 

The Green Drawing Room can only be viewed from the roped-off doorway, for facing one at the other end of the room are the doors to the Cream (or White) Drawing Room which belongs to the private apartments. 

Above the fireplace in the State Dining Room hangs a painting, one of the strangest, of Queen Victoria by Benjamin Constant. The guard took me behind the rope barrier so I could look at it more closely. As I say, a strange thing – not quite a portrayal of a woman, more a depiction of an archetype, ethereal, symbolic, and looking quite bemused. The guard told me Victoria was displeased with it because the painter had given her Garter sash the wrong shade of blue. However displeased she was, the sash remains as it was painted. He and I also discussed how the chairs didn't match the black gothic revival table, and it seems that the matching chairs I'd seen elsewhere were considered too heavy and, quite early on, were replaced by regilt lighter klismos variations.

As I walked through Saint George's Hall I overheard one guard advising the other of how she might grow potatoes in a large trash bag on her balcony, and I decided I would join the conversation. It's not that I'm fascinated by the subject of potatoes, or have ever seriously thought of growing them – but the idea of being able to do so on an east-facing eleventh-floor terrace has its attractions. Saint George's Hall, rebuilt after the fire in 1992, like other rooms that burned were restored, the guard told me as we walked out of the hall, (not sure if I was being moved along or not but, if so, it was done with grace and a smile) in such a way that it is equivalent to the pre-fire appearance, whatever that in practice might mean.

I removed my cap (a sign of respect long gone in other walks of life, for who any longer observes the tradition of taking off one's hat as a funeral goes by?) as I entered Saint George's Chapel, thereby forestalling the man who was just beginning to gesture that I should do so. Respect was on my mind a lot as I walked around the church though not so much when I spotted a docent in robes standing on a heating grate having a Marylyn Monroe moment.

I don't know how I'd come to forget that Saint George's Chapel, besides being the spiritual home of the Order of the Garter, is the burial place of many a British monarch, Henry VIII included. The most immediate for me in historical terms was that of King George VI, the present Queen's father – I remember him, though vaguely. What I remember more is the sorrow in our house and in our neighbourhood when he was gone.

"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.' ”

The above words, quoted in 1939 in his first Christmas Message of the Second World War, broadcast the the Empire, by King George VI, were used again by his daughter for the gates of the King George VI Memorial Chapel where the King is interred and yet again in 2002 when the words were read out at the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Small, with windows by John Piper, the King George VI Memorial Chapel, resembles the medieval chantries that line the aisles – not that masses for the departed are said anymore at Saint George's Chapel – and holds the bodies of George VI, his wife, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the ashes of their daughter, the Princess Margaret. The broken slab is a memorial to Princess Margaret from her children, I understand. 

 

As I headed towards the Galilee Porch, I saw a Japanese couple enter the church and bow deeply more – not to me nor to the docent, but to the church. What I spotted in the Galilee Porch, or the western narthex, was this face, thought to be that of King Edward III.

Near the exit, I was surrounded by a group of young Japanese who, all the while giggling, took photographs of one of their more intrepid comrades playacting next to the sentry near the tourist exit of Windsor Castle. When I stepped back, having taken my photograph and received my own personal glare (or so I thought) from the guardsman, I thanked the ineffably polite young people as I walked away. From a few feet away I heard, "You're welcome" at which everyone, including me, broke out into giggles all over again.

Images of the Crimson Drawing Room, The Green Drawing Room, The Cream Drawing Room, the State Dining Room from For the King's Pleasure: The Furnishing and Decoration of George IV's Apartments at Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection, text by Hugh Roberts, 2001.

Quotation about Gerald Kelly from The Queen Mother, The Official Biography, William Shawcross, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., New York. 2009. An eBook.

Quotation (Wikipedia) from God Knows, a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins used, in part, by King George VI in his Christmas radio broadcast, 1939.

Image of John Piper's Study for window in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St. George's, Windsor from here.

Image of the King George VI Chapel from St George's Chapel, Windsor Chapel guidebook. Photograph, Angelo Hornak.

Other photos my own.