Penny a Flower

Wrapping up one’s hair in purple silk and feeling the scratch of several underskirts has a strange effect. It encourages wistful ambling along country lanes; hands brushing hedgerows and mossy stiles. These actions are possibly accompanied by a strong desire to shout “penny a flower.” However, my mock-cockney accent is worse than Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, and thus I stick to inhabiting the look of a character, rather than giving it voice. Yet, the flower-girl feel of the clothes here brought to mind a favourite book of mine - Clive Boursnell's selection of photographs capturing Covent Garden market in the sixties. There were barrow boys, porters and...