Flower Power
Should Russell Crowe ever be planning a visit to Hastings, he might want to drop in on Brenda at Shirley Leaf & Petal Co. One hundred and 10 years ago, this small family business relocated from London and has stayed ever since. At the time, the company employed more than 100 people working in their workshop and in their family sheds and kitchen tables.
Velvet, silk and satins were used to produce delicate decorations for the clothes and hats demanded by Victorian and Edwardian ladies. With the changes in fashion, so came changes in fortune, although the business has continued to thrive and adapt. Two world wars left their mark, with waxed chrysanthemums and anemones being used for wreaths, in place of fresh flowers. With cloth rationing, young war brides would order handmade floral headdresses, often with words like RAF woven in beads across the crown.
In the intervening and post-war periods, the big department stores kept Shirley Leaf & Petal busy. Brenda feels certain that some readers will remember the Woolworths Devon Violets range of perfumes and soaps; their handmade purple violets were used as finishing touches. The shop is a treasure trove for vintage fans, with bolts of 1930s velvet piled alongside the floor-to-ceiling bunches and bouquets of flowers.
For just a pound, you can visit the old workshop in the basement, now given over to a flower museum (the only one of its kind), with more than 10,000 cutting tools displayed with the largest set of flower- and leaf-making cutting blocks in Europe. It is an Aladdin’s cave – with several of the old castiron machines still intact. Thrillingly, the pound also includes the chance to watch one of the assistants working an old press.
‘Artificial flowers’ seems an impolite term to describe the multicoloured jewels that bear no relation to the tacky plastic offerings usually placed in doctors’ waiting rooms and cheap B&Bs. I defy anyone not to walk away with at least one exquisite bunch. Certainly, if your rubble-strewn home is in need of a quick fix, a bunch of irises for £3 will cheer things up and they don’t mind being lightly hoovered.
But these little gems also have a separate life as film and theatre stars. All the West End theatres come calling, along with the grand opera houses and, it seems, the ancient coliseums of Rome. At the end of the film Gladiator, as Russell Crowe’s Maximus Meridius lays dying, he is showered by the crowd in, yes, red rose petals from Hastings. What a small world.
Next week: Tea with a view.
Velvet, silk and satins were used to produce delicate decorations for the clothes and hats demanded by Victorian and Edwardian ladies. With the changes in fashion, so came changes in fortune, although the business has continued to thrive and adapt. Two world wars left their mark, with waxed chrysanthemums and anemones being used for wreaths, in place of fresh flowers. With cloth rationing, young war brides would order handmade floral headdresses, often with words like RAF woven in beads across the crown.
In the intervening and post-war periods, the big department stores kept Shirley Leaf & Petal busy. Brenda feels certain that some readers will remember the Woolworths Devon Violets range of perfumes and soaps; their handmade purple violets were used as finishing touches. The shop is a treasure trove for vintage fans, with bolts of 1930s velvet piled alongside the floor-to-ceiling bunches and bouquets of flowers.
For just a pound, you can visit the old workshop in the basement, now given over to a flower museum (the only one of its kind), with more than 10,000 cutting tools displayed with the largest set of flower- and leaf-making cutting blocks in Europe. It is an Aladdin’s cave – with several of the old castiron machines still intact. Thrillingly, the pound also includes the chance to watch one of the assistants working an old press.
‘Artificial flowers’ seems an impolite term to describe the multicoloured jewels that bear no relation to the tacky plastic offerings usually placed in doctors’ waiting rooms and cheap B&Bs. I defy anyone not to walk away with at least one exquisite bunch. Certainly, if your rubble-strewn home is in need of a quick fix, a bunch of irises for £3 will cheer things up and they don’t mind being lightly hoovered.
But these little gems also have a separate life as film and theatre stars. All the West End theatres come calling, along with the grand opera houses and, it seems, the ancient coliseums of Rome. At the end of the film Gladiator, as Russell Crowe’s Maximus Meridius lays dying, he is showered by the crowd in, yes, red rose petals from Hastings. What a small world.
Next week: Tea with a view.