Happy memories of bygone days and a date with Madge
This is the first in an occasional series of anecdotes and recollections by Tim Blenkin.
I made a career change 50 years ago which was to set the path for my working life: I was taken on by Marsh & Parsons, a residential Estate Agency in London’s fashionable Kensington W8. It led me to a series of adventures.
My office was on Kensington Church Street. Immediately to the west lie the pretty treelined streets of what we knew affectionately as “The Village”, to the east, Kensington Gardens, Knightsbridge and the West
End.
Much of W8 had not changed since the Second World War, but I began my career at an exciting time, with modern developments and conversions breaking new ground.
The villagers, however, were set in their ways. Often driving a shopping basket on wheels, they frequented the tea shops, Barkers of Kensington and its neighbour, Pontings, the great department stores of the age.
Uniformed Norland Nannies pushed prams, small restaurants hid modestly under awnings, and Tristram Jellinek sold antiques up the road.
One fine spring morning I responded to a telephone call to visit a Mrs Hodgshon, a widow with a garden flat in Gloucester Walk, a stroll from the office.
Lorraine, plugging and unplugging calls on the oldfashioned switchboard, put the call through. “It’s one of your villagers: she says can you go today?”
I walked to my appointment, found the front door and knocked. I could hear a muffled yapping and guessed that my “villager” owned a Pekingese – many did.
A bright-eyed and immaculately turned out little old lady greeted me. Her face was carefully rouged, and with a winning smile she invited me in.
Madge Hodgshon must have been in her late 70s. Dainty would have been my epithet of choice to describe her; birdlike, she tripped along in front of me as we toured the flat.
I admired its serenity and beautiful antique furniture, china, glass, and paintings.
The garden, too, was a picture. Camellias were coming into flower, and a weeping birch hung over a small pond.
I was lost in admiration as I tried to assess value. “Tea, Mr
Blenkin – or may I call you Tim? Come in and sit down, do.”
Chatting up the prospective client is part of the job, but this wasn’t work, it was a joyful encounter.
She poured tea from a Queen Anne silver tea pot into porcelain cups and served walnut cake from a cake stand.
Madge’s late husband had been in the Indian Army, and she planned to buy a small flat nearby. “And what did you do, yourself?” I asked. “Oh, I danced,” she said, and added, “with Anna Pavlova.”
I learnt that Pavlova was Diaghilev’s principal dancer before setting up her own company in London in 1911. So, at a guess, Madge worked with her just after the First World War, in her early 20s.
Magical encounters like this are rare. But it got better. She asked: “You are from Marsh and Parsons, aren’t you?”
“Yes, indeed.” “Oh, I am so glad. You know, in the old days they sold all the houses and flats round here. But now there are agents coming from London and places.” In other words, as we in Yorkshire might have it, foreigners, and not from the village.
As I left, I thought to ask her: “Tell me, Mrs Hodgshon, have you lived in Kensington all your life?” With a twinkle she was back in a flash “Not yet,” she said.