Downstairs Window

Downstairs Window

Rooms

Some doors open on a thickly-peopled air
Of moving shadows, those whose lives, long gone,
Were spent there....
Some on a waiting silence - of expectancy
For those to come; some to the musty smell
Of mere desuetude; and some in constancy
To the long loving years of sweet content
In which the light of sun and moon have blent
In lasting light that bids all dark farewell -
Of such will this room tell.

Mary Stella Edwards, 1962.

Saturday 8 May 2010

Day 8: Maimie Braund's Parlour (Saturday 8 May 2010)

Maimie always wore a flower in her hair.
She is pictured in the doorway of Corner Cottage in 1949 with her father Ernest Braund, a fisherman.

It takes twelve strides to get from the Cabin to Corner Cottage.


When she was young Maimie ran away to London with a writer who had come to Bucks Mills among the affluent visitors looking for a creative retreat. Ernest went and fetched her home again.
Maimie's mother died in 1946 and her father died in 1953.
'Corner Cottage Interior, Bucks Mills' was painted by Mary Stella Edwards in 1957.
Maimie Braund married her childhood sweetheart, Mr Johns, when she was 80 years old.
Maimie's story is taken from 'Who Lived in Cottages Like These? The Inhabitants of Bucks Mills' by Rebecca and Janet Few, publ. The Braund Society.