The Gown

by Jennifer Robson

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  * * *

  Meet Jennifer Robson

  About the Book

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  Closed Doors and Open Windows

  An Interview with Betty Foster

  Grand-Mère’s Friday-Night Chicken

  Reading Group Guide

  Read On . . .

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  Suggestions for Further Reading

  About the Author

  Meet Jennifer Robson

  JENNIFER ROBSON is the USA Today and #1 Globe & Mail (Toronto) bestselling author of five novels, among them Somewhere in France and Goodnight from London. She holds a doctorate in British economic and social history from Saint Antony’s College, University of Oxford. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and children.

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  About the Book

  Closed Doors and Open Windows

  I wish I could say that the premise for The Gown came upon me in true “eureka!” fashion, but the reality is a little more prosaic. It was the summer of 2016, I was having lunch with my editor and literary agent, and we were brainstorming ideas for my next book. After agreeing that I ought to write something set in Britain after World War II, we’d begun to flounder. I’d floated a few suggestions, none of them terribly compelling, and was starting to feel a bit desperate. So I posed the question: What felt important to the people who lived through that time? What was significant and memorable then? And that’s when I remembered one event, late in 1947, that had transfixed the entire world: the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.

  Nothing could have stood in greater contrast to those draining, dispiriting, and miserable postwar years than the glittering and bejeweled spectacle of a royal wedding. The great celebrations of VE Day and VJ Day were over and the hard work of rebuilding the world had begun, but Britain’s economy remained in a calamitous state after years of ruinously expensive warfare. Not only did austerity measures such as rationing remain in place, but in a number of respects they also became even more stringent. For many people, life seemed to be getting worse, not better.

  That is the world I set out to explore when I began work on The Gown. What would it have been like to live through those lean, hard years? And what did the royal wedding mean to the people of the time—was it indeed “a flash of color on the hard road [they had] to travel,” as Winston Churchill famously said? Or was it a bitter and unwelcome reminder of how little they had and how much they had lost?

  From the start, I didn’t want to tell my story from the point of view of Princess Elizabeth or anyone in her inner circle. Not because I feel the princess—Queen Elizabeth II as we now know her—is in any way uninteresting, but rather because I believe her true character is a mystery to anyone beyond her close family and friends. The queen has never given an interview and never will, her thoughts and opinions on most subjects are largely opaque, and the woman we think we know is, I believe, largely a projection of our individual feelings and beliefs. Here I want to be clear: I am fascinated by the queen and her family, but no amount of research will ever allow me to know them; and if I cannot truly know and understand them, I feel it is better to remain at a distance.

  But back to my lunch and the brainstorming session, because I still needed a hook for my story—even more so once I’d discounted the possibility of telling it from the point of view of the bride or anyone in her inner circle. And that’s when two words popped into my head: the gown.

  A few seconds later, we were admiring pictures of the royal wedding on my phone, and I had the central question on which my story would turn: who made Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown? I knew it had been designed by Norman Hartnell; what I wanted to know, rather, was who constructed it. Who were the women who created the dazzling embroidery that embellished the gown, and what were their stories?

  As a writer and a historian, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of sacrificing historical authenticity for dramatic tension, and that’s why my first four books have as their protagonists entirely fictional characters. While the same is true of The Gown—Ann, Miriam, and Heather are entirely products of my imagination—its cast also includes a number of real-life figures, among them people who were known to have worked at Hartnell, but whose personal stories were never recorded and are now all but impossible to accurately recount.

  This uncomfortable truth dawned on me not long after I began work on The Gown: I would have to fictionalize the stories of real people, as well as insert fictional characters into a setting populated by known and recognizable figures. I would also have to take some liberties with minor aspects of recorded history, if only to make the story I was telling more comprehensible.

  Germaine Davide, for instance, the formidable Frenchwoman employed by Hartnell as his chief fitter and known to everyone in the workrooms as Mam’selle, was mentioned by name in any number of sources, among them Hartnell’s memoirs, but she wrote no memoir herself and gave no interviews, and details of her personal life, at a remove of more than half a century, are now impossible to unearth. The same is true of Edith Duley, who was known to have been a senior figure in the embroidery workrooms: I came across her name in several newspaper articles, and I believe she is the woman described as the “head of embroidery” in a photograph that appeared in a Picture Post article in the autumn of 1947, but that is all. In his memoir Silver and Gold, Hartnell also mentions a woman named Flora Ballard, but she proved even more elusive, and so for the purposes of narrative clarity I elected to streamline the number of women in supervisory roles in the workroom. To that end, Miss Duley is not only a composite of several people, but also a fictional character in every respect apart from her name and the barest details of her physical appearance.

  Even more daunting, for me, was the mystery of the embroiderers themselves. Dozens of articles were written about the creation of Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown—nearly every British magazine and newspaper ran one or more in the latter half of 1947—but no one, it seems, thought to interview a single embroiderer.

  If anyone from Hartnell were to read The Gown, they might reasonably protest that they don’t recognize any of my characters: not Mr. Hartnell, not Mam’selle or Miss Duley or Miss Holliday, and certainly not Ann or Miriam. In this I hope I may be forgiven, not only for conjuring their characters from the ether, but also in attaching real names to largely fictional creations. Only one person, within the walls of Hartnell, is true to life: Betty from the sewing workroom.

  Betty Foster, née Pearce, was one of four seamstresses who worked on the wedding gown, and it was only by the purest stroke of good fortune that I met her at all. For months I had attempted, with diminishing success, to get in touch with anyone who had worked at Hartnell in the 1940s, and although many decades had passed I was hopeful that I might yet find someone who could tell me about life in the workrooms.

  I had tried, and failed, to gain access to Sir Norman Hartnell’s personal papers and archive, which are held privately. I had contacted the curators at the Royal Collection, with the hopes that they would be able to put me in touch with one or more of the women who had once worked at Hartnell, but they were unable to help me.

  With those doors firmly closed, I consoled myself with a trip to London to see the wedding gown itself, which was on display at Buckingham Palace as part of the Fashioning a Reign exhibition. I also wandered around Bruton Street and Bruton Place (though I was never brave enough to knock on the door and ask to go inside), and I searched online and in person at every library and museum with holdings related to Norman Hartnell and the royal wedding of 1947.

  I was gathering ever more information, but it still felt incomplete, for I was never able to find more than the barest scraps of information about the women who sewed and embroidered the wedding gown. A few photographs, some maddeningly vague details in Hartnell’s published memoirs—that was all. Wi
th barely more than a year until the first draft of my book was due, I was still bumping up against closed doors.

  I wasn’t willing to give up, however, so I asked myself: if I can’t speak to those who worked for Hartnell, or read their stories, or even unearth basic details such as the shape of an ordinary day in the workrooms, can I speak to someone who does similar work today? And that’s how I ended up at Hand & Lock, London’s oldest and most prestigious bespoke hand embroidery atelier, on another trip to England in early 2017. I wanted to know how it felt to sit in front of an embroidery frame for hours on end, to take those first stitches on an immaculate piece of silk, to feel my eyes blur and my neck ache after hours of concentration on that same piece of silk and the motifs I had been tasked with creating.

  The day I spent at Hand & Lock happened to coincide with the visit of a documentary film crew, part of the team who were working on A Very Royal Wedding, and as I chatted with their producers I mentioned how difficult it had been to research my book, and how much I would have loved to speak to someone who had worked at Hartnell at the time. To my astonishment, they offered to put me in touch with Betty Foster.

  The next day I went to meet Mrs. Foster, and I listened to her stories of life at Hartnell, and the memories she shared with me made all the difference to how I approached the story I was writing. She opened a window into the heart and soul of Hartnell, and I am deeply grateful for her insights. It was she who told me how Miss Holliday kindly allowed all the women in the sewing workrooms to add a stitch to the gown, and thereby say they had worked on the princess’s finery; and it was Mrs. Foster who described the royal ladies’ visit to the workrooms and the unpracticed curtsies she and her friends offered their guests. She told me about the workroom interiors, Mr. Hartnell’s kindness, and Mam’selle’s impenetrable accent, as well as dozens of other details that brought my story to life. With Mrs. Foster’s permission, I later added her to The Gown as a character, and so it is Betty herself who accompanies Miriam to the palace on the wedding day.

  Here I need to make one last confession: on the wedding day itself, Mrs. Foster actually was outside, just by the gates of Buckingham Palace, having been given a special ticket to stand in a roped-off area with many of her friends from Hartnell. It was with her permission that I instead put her inside the palace on November 20, 1947, and let her look out along the Mall, with Miriam at her side, as the carriages with the royal party left for Westminster Abbey that morning. I feel she deserved no less.

  As with my other novels, in The Gown I have attempted to describe the past—not the far-distant past, but a vanished and largely unfamiliar world all the same—with authenticity and accuracy. I accept that I have made mistakes, and that those errors are my fault and responsibility alone. Yet I hope, in the end, that you will read this story in the spirit in which it was written, which is one of respect, reverence, and above all profound gratitude for those whose sacrificed and lost so much during those terrible years of war.

  An Interview with Betty Foster

  Jennifer Robson

  In February 2017 I had the good fortune to interview Mrs. Betty Foster, one of the four seamstresses who helped to create Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown in 1947. The following passages are only a brief sample of our hours-long conversation, which took place at her home in the south of England; transcribed in its entirety, my interview with Mrs. Foster stretches to dozens of pages.

  Q: When did you begin work at Hartnell?

  A: It was 1942, during the war but after the Blitz, although there was still a blackout and some air raids going on. I’d turned fourteen in May and finished school, and in August I started at Hartnell. I think I was the last apprentice to go into this workroom, because all the others after me came from the college. Miss Holliday, who trained me, she preferred apprentices, because when they went to college they were taught a certain way, weren’t they? Whereas I didn’t know anything. I knew nothing about dressmaking. I wanted to be a dress designer! And I ended up with Miss Holliday, who was Mr. Hartnell’s senior seamstress. She’d been with him forever.

  Q: Can you describe an ordinary working day at Hartnell?

  A: I’d go in early, because if you got the train before seven it was cheaper. So I’d get to Hartnell’s quite early, about eight o’clock, and we didn’t start until half past eight. So I used to go to the Lyons Corner House nearby—there used to be one near the station on Bond Street—and I’d go in there and have a cup of tea and a bun. And then I’d make my way down to Bruton Place. That’s where we went in—through the mews behind Bruton Street. We’d work through the morning, with a half-hour break at some point, although often it wasn’t even that, and we had a very short lunch, too. And then we left at five. There was a canteen downstairs, so that’s where we’d eat.

  Q: How did you find out you’d be working on Princess Elizabeth’s wedding dress?

  A: Mr. Hartnell came to our table, Miss Holliday’s table, with the sketch that the princess had chosen, and that’s when he asked if Miss Holliday would make the dress. Would you believe she was hesitant? She made all the important dresses for him, and she was the oldest of his seamstresses, and had been there the longest. But she did hesitate, because it was such a big responsibility. And we said, “Oh, please, Miss Holliday!” So she gave in, but she made us promise to behave ourselves!

  Q: Were you nervous when you worked on the gown?

  A: Would you believe I wasn’t? We didn’t have much time but I don’t remember feeling rushed. Of course we were used to having film stars ordering dresses for premieres and things like that, and often at the last minute. But I don’t remember being a bundle of nerves. We always made the queen’s dresses—the queen mum, you know—and we were used to working on important things.

  Q: Can you tell me a bit about how the dress was made?

  A: The princess had two fittings with a toile before the dress was embroidered, and then the pieces were sent to the embroidery room, and only then did it come back to the workroom where it was all put together. Before it was made up I had the task of making the buttons. I sewed all twenty-two buttonholes on the back and I also made the sleeves. Because I’d never made a buttonhole before, I had to practice on scrap bits of fabric. Only then was I allowed to work on the already meticulously embroidered dress. I remember sitting at my table and Miss Holliday telling all the other girls that no one was allowed to talk to me whilst I was practicing. After the dress had its final fitting, the seams were re-embroidered, because they couldn’t do the embroidery until it had been properly fitted. That’s when the embroiderers went back over the seams and filled in the empty spaces. I remember, too, how when everything was done, Miss Holliday let the other girls do a stitch or two, just so they could say they had worked on the wedding dress. And then, just before it was delivered to Buckingham Palace, we all got to see it, and the bridesmaids’ dresses, too, because we hadn’t seen them before—they’d been made up in another of the workrooms.

  Q: What was Mr. Hartnell like?

  A: You know, he wasn’t at all proud or snobbish. He was really lovely, a friendly, friendly man. Just a wonderful person.

  Q: Did you ever meet the queen?

  A: Not then, although I was one of the guests at her Diamond Wedding celebration at Westminster Abbey. After she was married, we made up some clothes for her. I think she was going on a tour somewhere. We had to check to make sure they fitted properly, so I got to go to the Palace. Mam’selle—Germaine Davide, who was Mr. Hartnell’s chief fitter—and Miss Holliday and I got in a taxi, and when we got to the palace we just went through the gates, because I think the policeman recognized Mam’selle. I remember we went in through the basement, where the kitchens are, and it was very cold and not very nice. There was a lift at the end, and we went upstairs. It was just us—we didn’t see any servants. And we walked along this beautiful corridor, with all sorts of displays and cabinets and settees, and we walked past all the different apartments for different members of the royal f
amily. And we got to her door and there was a plaque that said “Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth.” Mam’selle knocked on the door and said, “Coo-ee,” and we went in. Mam’selle went on ahead and left me and Miss Holliday in the dressing room, I suppose it was. And I looked out the window and I could see all the cars going down the Mall. And you know, when I’ve stood outside the palace since then I always look up and wonder which of those windows I looked out of that day.

  Q: And did you meet Princess Elizabeth that day?

  A: I didn’t! The clothes all fit, so we didn’t have to do any alterations. I did get to meet the Queen Mum once. It was during the war and we’d made her a beautiful gown, and the queen said, “Would the girls who worked on my dress like to see me wearing it?” I was chosen, and Miss Holliday, and somebody from the embroidery room. Miss Yvonne, the queen’s saleslady, she introduced me. She said, “This is Betty, who helped to make your beautiful dress,” and the queen said, “Oh, thank you so much. I do love it when they sparkle!” She was so lovely, and friendly, and standing on the other side were all the servants, seeing her already dressed. There was a big banquet at the palace that night, and the king was there, too.

  Q: Can you tell me about the time the royal ladies visited when you were working on Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown?

  A: Oh, yes. They wanted to see where the dress was being made, and when we learned they were coming we practiced our curtseys. I remember how they walked through the doors and we all did our curtseys, except we all bobbled up and down at different times. Mr. Hartnell brought the group over to our table, and he said, this is where the dress is being made, and then he explained how some Americans had hired the flat opposite—to see if they could get a glimpse of the wedding dress—and when he said that to Queen Mary, and explained how we’d had to cover the windows, she said, “What a bore!” in that very deep voice of hers.