The Gown(113)
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.