I doubt any of you were reading my blog back then. Between her part of her flat on the ground floor and The Boarder's rooms, were two rooms full of machines. Dame M was a specialist Cornely embroiderer and I just checked and the machines sell for about about US$2000 in the the US.
The Boarder took the machines and much of Dame M's heavy antique furniture. Although his flat after Dame M's death was a large two storey place, there were only goat tracks to move around, so I was told. He did not like people to visit his place.
Here are a couple of photos of Dame M and a clipping from The Sun, 1981. Dame M died at 82 in 2008. I guess the two photos would be from the mid 80s to the mid 90s. Although The Boarder did her hair in her last couple of years, earlier it was attended to by Lillian Frank.
When Dame M is quoted as working until she drops to produce pieces, what she probably meant was until she was too tipsy.
I recently said to our dyke friend, I did not realise Dame M has such a large set of bazookies. She agreed that they were and said Dame M always wore a girdle. Dame M was smart, confident, self sufficient, friendly, caring, interested and very social. She did not suffer fools at all and was the first to spot the shirker on our restaurant bill and at one time in about 2002, she banned straight men from entering her home after a couple of rough and patronising experiences. I have a nice photo of her and her husband. She was never beholden to him, although he was quite a successful business man and she inherited his income, but not his capital. In a way this is my contribution to this week's International Women's Day. Dame M may not be the person whose lifestyle a young woman should emulate, but she is a good example of an independent and successful woman.
I am getting too wordy and spoiling the post, but I had forgotten until reading my Dame M blog link today, that she left her husband in their holiday house at Newhaven on Phillip Island and started to walk the two hour car drive back to Melbourne, saying she would never return to Wits End. She didn't return and her husband sold the house, but a friend did pick her up along the walk home.