Art deco continues to haunt as a theme, after recent exhibitions & excursions, and simply by moving to Bloomsbury, one of London’s main Deco playgrounds.
And so, I’ve just returned from an idyllic week at Burgh Island, a wonderfully Art Deco hotel built in 1929 and restored to its former glory with loving attention to detail. One dresses formally for dinner (I felt completely underdressed every night, despite wearing a suit!); the furniture is all perfect reproduction or 20s original; no rooms have TV, only vintage radios; smoked salmon breakfast in the Ganges room; antique telephones with dials – remember those!?; high tea in palm bedecked conservatories; days spent lounging on, er, loungers in the garden overlooking the south Devon coast or swimming in the natural lagoon the hotel owns. Guests in its heyday included Noël Coward and Agatha Christie, who is thought to have based And Then There Were None and Evil Under The Sun on the hotel and island.
A great way to escape and find the solitude to read and regroup mentally. As a thorough break from London’s quotidian chaos, whilst retaining all the trappings of urban civilisation that a ponce like me values, I can recommend it thoroughly.
I shall now post a series of self-indulgent notes on books I read while away.