A dancer, choreographer and director who made her stage debut aged three, Toye was a creative powerhouse who left an estimable legacy as a film director. Now two of her films are being released for a new audience
How a little Mayfair bookshop inspired Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love
Having almost given up writing, Nancy Mitford joined Heywood Hill bookshop, turning it into a literary salon that inspired her greatest work
Heywood Hill bookshop in Mayfair, beloved by the Queen
The year is 1936: Jesse Owens embarrasses the Third Reich at its own Olympics, Edward VIII ascends the throne and Heywood Hill, a little bookshop on Curzon Street in Mayfair, opens its doors for the first time. Named after the proprietor George Heywood Hill, an Old Etonian who married the daughter of the Earl of Cranbrook, the bookshop initially specialised in first and limited editions as well as Victorian toys, with most of its clientele aristocrats due to its affluent location.
THERE will be thousands of tributes for that British institution Dame Barbara Windsor, who died last week from Alzheimer’s at a London care home. She was 83.
Most will concentrate on her many starring roles in the Carry On series of films or as publican Peggy Mitchell in TV soap EastEnders.
Some will deal with her close relationships with criminals and others will patronise much of her work.
Although she was known for her Conservative sympathies, her talent won admiration from across the political spectrum, and I think we should look back on the long career of a working-class actor who, long before her stardom, had been in the 1950s an enthusiastic and much-valued member of one of Britain’s most significant and influential left-wing theatre groups, Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop.