In the illuminating TV series, Seven Ages of Britain ,David Dimbleby said that at one stage the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office ,Whitehall, London, between them ran most of the world. He made this statement after climbing a massive flight of ornate stairs in the Foreign Office to an out of the way place where a magnificent painting depicting Britannia receiving tribute from the world –a pearl necklace , tea, cotton ,etc , is now more or less hidden away.
A Little Darwin reader tipped us off that a woman now residing in Darwin and making plans for a wild Melbourne Cup party in her palatial abode , had slid down the stairs at the said Foreign Office on her bottom because she was afraid of heights. However, checking , it was revealed it had not been at the powerful Foreign Office but a museum where she inelegantly made her exit. She had worked as a junior typist at Somerset House ( births, deaths, marriages and wills ) where telephone calls were made to some mysterious person at Whitehall 1212 .
Hitler was responsible for her mother thinking " all her Christmases had come at once ". When Whitehall was bombed , her father was in the gang sent to clean up and brought home one of the plush , velvet Foreign Office curtains which had been blown down . These heavy curtains ran from the floor to the ceiling. Her mother was absolutely thrilled to think she had something from Whitehall , and cut it up to cover the front door to prevent the bitterly cold wind from getting in.
From time to time ,the woman repeated her bottom slide when she strode Darwin's corridors of power, probably why she did not rise above a Grade 3 clerk , despite being multi- skilled , efficient, a dab hand at pomp and protocol and, above all , compiled Darwin’s first official A list , which should have made her as powerful and influential as the Foreign Office and Colonial Office wallahs.
A Little Darwin reader tipped us off that a woman now residing in Darwin and making plans for a wild Melbourne Cup party in her palatial abode , had slid down the stairs at the said Foreign Office on her bottom because she was afraid of heights. However, checking , it was revealed it had not been at the powerful Foreign Office but a museum where she inelegantly made her exit. She had worked as a junior typist at Somerset House ( births, deaths, marriages and wills ) where telephone calls were made to some mysterious person at Whitehall 1212 .
Hitler was responsible for her mother thinking " all her Christmases had come at once ". When Whitehall was bombed , her father was in the gang sent to clean up and brought home one of the plush , velvet Foreign Office curtains which had been blown down . These heavy curtains ran from the floor to the ceiling. Her mother was absolutely thrilled to think she had something from Whitehall , and cut it up to cover the front door to prevent the bitterly cold wind from getting in.
From time to time ,the woman repeated her bottom slide when she strode Darwin's corridors of power, probably why she did not rise above a Grade 3 clerk , despite being multi- skilled , efficient, a dab hand at pomp and protocol and, above all , compiled Darwin’s first official A list , which should have made her as powerful and influential as the Foreign Office and Colonial Office wallahs.
