Flowers for the Duchess

Auteur

Edwina was born in Portsmouth into a naval family. When she was four, the family moved to Nottingham, her father being posted there as Royal Navy and Royal Marine Recruiting Officer. In the time before eleven plus exams, she took a scholarship and won a place at Brincliffe Grammar School in Nottingham. On marriage, she moved to Derbyshire with her husband Geoffrey, who was a draughtsman at Rolls-Royce (Aero Division) Ltd. After their two sons were settled at school Edwina also joined the staff at Rolls-Royce. In the early seventies, the family moved to Cornwall where she still lives and enjoys village life but sadly is now widowed.

Texte du rabat

The lives and times of a large family in service over the turn of the last century. James Pogson was one of the youngest children. His working life started at thirteen years of age when he entered the gardeners' bothy on the Welbeck Abbey Estate in the Dukeries, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Portland. As James progressed, gaining knowledge and experience, his love and artistry of flowers became apparent. By his mid-twenties, he was doing floristry in the Abbey and had graduated to become an 'indoor' servant with his own small apartment at the Abbey. His work diary for 1911, on which this book is based, gives an insight to the flowers he worked with and to the events of that year.