Tag Archives: 1940’s event

Purple Eyebrows at Bletchley Park

Posted on September 25, 2022 by Kitten von Mew

Things have gone a bit pear shaped recently. This week for instance; I had been desperately getting a steampunk outfit ready for next weekend. As they were planning a 1000 Leagues Under the Sea Dance, I thought I would create mermaid-y hair and tried a temporary purple with green hair wax. The same evening I got a message stating that the event had been cancelled and I was devastated. So much so that I didn’t wash out the colour. The next day I was playing badminton with some chums, so had a shower and…it wouldn’t wash out. Well, the green came off my hair, but stayed on my scalp and the purple had actually turned dark blue, that had now gone blue and grey.

I got some extra strength colour stripper for my hair and some of my favourite orangey-red hair dye, ready to go back to my normal vivacious tangerine! Sooooooo, the hair stripper didn’t work particularly well and neither did the hair colourant.

Kitten Von Mew entertaining one of the stallholders!

Skip forward to today and there I was, going to Bletchley Park, with grey-blue, browny-orange hair that I tried desperately to camouflage in victory rolls and a hat. This was bad enough, but I also had a wardrobe malfunction before leaving. I had wanted to wear my original 1940’s green suit and the metal zipper broke when I was doing the skirt up. So I quickly put on a dress that was too big (but didn’t need ironing) and some 40’s style platform shoes…nope, the platform soles decided that now was a great time to disintegrate. I swapped to my Miss L Fire’s and we hot-stepped it out of the door.

Cut to the car journey, where I was FaceTiming the folks and I caught a glimpse of myself in the sun visor mirror.

“Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me I had purple eyebrows?!”

Children’s ‘Mickey Mouse’ Gas mask. they were blue and red with a nose flap that made a silly noise when you breathed out.

Hurricane flypast

I was in such a panic to get ready and makeup on that I hadn’t been paying attention to the brush I used to apply the brown tint to my brows. It has obviously been used for pink or red lipstick beforehand and I hadn’t realised.

Cut back to the car journey and scrubbing with a wet wipe only seemed to create a brighter purple and a lilac haze on the skin around my brows.

Karen, The Heritage Milliner and Shona of Heyday Vintage!

So I went to the Bletchley Park 1940’s Weekend with bluey-grey, orangey-brown hair and purple eyebrows in an oversized dress and still had a wonderful time. Sometimes you just need to suck up the stress, see the funny side and enjoy each splendid, silly, memorable moment.

And hey, I can always desaturate the photos!

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Posted in Day to Day, Events and Performances, Fashion and Shopping, WW2 History and tagged 1940's event, 1940’s weekend, Bletchley Park, funny, funny blog post, funny photos, heritage milliner, heyday vintage, kitten von mew, vintage girl, ww2 event. Bookmark the permalink.

Ironbridge 1940’s Day at The Boat Inn

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Kitten von Mew

We are just in the car, heading back from a wonderful day in picturesque Ironbridge.

The 1940’s Day was hosted by the team behind the annual WW2 Weekend and was another great way to raise money for COMBAT STRESS.

There were vintage military vehicles, information stands, reenactors with American, British, German and French Resistance setups and myself and Ava Evergreen entertaining!

I have, as yet, not been able to sing at the full weekend event because of other bookings, but it was a wonderful little setup and certainly attracted a good amount of people.

Just a 5 minute walk away was an amazing craft centre (squeal!!!!!) that I didn’t have time to explore, but the coffee shop did a lovely breakfast to fuel our day and prepare me for my first set.

The Naval Officer’s car (or command car?) was certainly my favourite there and I could have quite happily trundled home in that beauty!

Everyone had very good, informative dioramas and we chatted to the French Resistance people for quite a while. Each group were very approachable and eager to answer question or show you interesting artifacts.

The chap smiling above was amazingly knowledgeable about British kit and we had a great chat about hand grenades. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t know anything about the Bakelite ones. Now, my reenactor friends will be rolling their eyes at me right now, but I’ve only ever seen the pineapples and the sticks. I may have just not realised until now what they were!

The idea was to unscrew the cap, throw the grenade and then a cotton tape would unwind. The weight of the lead tab at the end pulled out the pin to detonate the grenade.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed this little post. Thank you to everyone who came, Dave Adams for booking me and Rosie and everyone at COMBAT STRESS. I hope you raised lovely amount of money!

The dress I was wearing today is by Heyday Online and is a BRAND NEW Mary dress, with long sleeves! I’m wearing a size 14, with a corset underneath to accentuate my curves. Because of the cut, it frames my cinched waist as well as fitting beautifully at my natural waist size too!

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Posted in Day to Day, Events and Performances, modelling, WW2 History and tagged 1940's event, 1940’s day, 40's entertainer, 40's singer, Ava evergreen, combat stress, heyday online, ironbridge, Mary dress, WW2, ww2 event, WWII. Bookmark the permalink.

Bletchley Park Vintage Weekend – Sunday

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Kitten von Mew

How lucky were we with the weather?! Even when we arrived, my weather app said it was 65% chance of thunderstorms and showers from 2pm. Bletchley Park Vintage Weekend stayed hot and humid until we left!

Today we were all wearing vintage. Richard was in is WWII American Navy gear, I was in an original 40’s crepe dress with studded detailing and betsy was in an adorable vintage dress with chickens embroidered around the bottom!

We headed once more to the vintage tent to have a look at the stalls (sunglasses were a must-have purchase as I was not prepared for the sunshine at all!) and then on to the mansion restaurant to order lunch and sit in the sunshine, whilst Betsy made the most of the play equipment. Got to say that the ribs were scrumptious, but at events like this, it does get VERY busy with a long queue at lunchtime.

We need to do the whole weekend next year so that we have time for a tour around the huts too. It’s a bit tricky with a 2.5 year old that just wants to run around, ride on the back of swans and talk to everyone who will listen (how she went to the toilet, what colour her toenails are, various songs from her extensive repertoire…”and on that farm he had some shoes ee-i–ee-i-oh, with clip clop here and a clip clop there…”).

We did manage to watch the lindy hoppers in the main marquee, who were lovely.

There was then a short dance tutorial, where Betsy went around offering the dancers gummy bears as sustenance.

My singing set went really well, albeit performing in a sauna! Lovely audience yet again and even some dancers braved the heat. It was amazing to glance over at the swans and lake, people dressed beautifully in their vintage fashions and bask in the incredible history of Bletchley.

Kitten Von Mew Singing < click the link for a video!

Thank you to all those who came and showed support, it really does mean the world to me.

Wow. I’ve just performed at Bletchley Park!!!

Crich Tramway WWII Weekend 2017

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Kitten von Mew

Although I’ve had a migraine since last Tuesday, we were hell bent on getting a nice family outing in this Easter weekend!

Luckily Crich is only around 90 minutes from us, so doable with a 21 month old. It was Betsy’s first time at the open air museum and she LOVED the ride on the tram!

I think most people were shocked at the fact we actually had a ‘real live person’ inside our vintage pram as we trundled across the cobbled streets. It was lovely to see familiar faces from past events, but the weather was a little chilly and we found it hard to stand still for too long (even in my coat!).

So here are a few photos from this year. I should’ve taken more, but was had to keep my eye on Queen B at the same time!