Category Archives: Tea Rooms

Back to Work!

By Posted in Author Event, best selling novel, Edinburgh, new book, new writing, Public libraries, Scotland, Short Story, Tea Rooms, Womens Groups Tagged , , , 4 Comments

stock-illustration-50715032-woman-back-office-work-monitor-drawingWell the Summer break is over. Fun was duly had by all. Blackwell’s ‘Writers at the Fringe’ event went well. Time to get back to work. There’s lots to do. I started last week at the Kinross Thursday group and the Westwoods Book Group. Enjoyable evenings, interesting ladies to speak to and some great questions posed. Just what I like. Luckily, there seems to be more of these events lined up over the coming months. Bring it on.

Otherwise I’ve got lots of writing to do. Book 2 has been submitted to the publisher-Comely Bank Publishing- and I expect to be doing my ‘corrections’ as they emerge from the copy editing and proof reading stages. Then there will be cover design to think about and all the various aspects of book production that readers don’t think about. I know I never did until  my best selling novel ‘Our Best Attention.’

My other writing has been short stories for a certain ladies weekly story magazine published in Scotland. Guess which one? This has been a most enjoyable foray away from Murrays although the popular ‘Tea room ladies’ feature in two of them. I couldn’t help myself!

Next outing is as part of the ‘Edinburgh Tales’ series at the Edinburgh Central Library on 21st September.  I’ll be talking about the book but also remembering the wonderful department store which was the inspiration for the setting of ‘Our Best Attention.’ Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look on it all the tickets were snapped up weeks ago.

Tea Rooms -Fact and Fiction!

By Posted in Advertisements, Author Event, department stores, Edinburgh, memories, Scotland, Tea Rooms, Womens Groups Tagged , Leave a comment

 

Tea RoomOne of the most popular chapters  in the book “Our Best Attention” is set in the Tea Room of a large  department store and concerns the nefarious activities of a group of Edinburgh ladies. People are always asking about the ‘Tea Room Ladies’ and whether they will reappear in book 2. Well, the short answer is that, yes, they most certainly will. This is due partly to my enjoying  writing about this particular set of ladies, and partly because I love Tea Rooms!  I always have.

At a recent author event, a former employee of a certain large department store brought me in all sorts of memorabilia. This included information about the restaurants and tea rooms there. Well it was a goldmine for me!

An 1895 advertisement for  the “Luncheon and Tea Rooms,”  a novel feature of Edinburgh life,  described them as having, “everything served in first class style at moderate prices.” The elegant mezzanine floor with a gallery was treated in Alhambra style and decorated in cream and gold. A Writing Room, “fitted with every requisite for Ladies,” was immediately beside the Luncheon and Tea room and beside that a cloakroom where, “ladies may leave their wraps or have parcels addressed to them from other shops in town.”

All was clearly well for the ladies of Edinburgh. However, things weren’t too bad for the staff either. One irresistible fact I discovered was that staff could opt to have meals included as part of their pay. “Those who did ate lavishly and without restriction. A man was employed solely to carve the joints which were served to the staff. This was his only task and was a full time occupation.”

A happy staff then to provide the advertised, “refined service of the dainty and varied meals.”

Those were the days!