February 1952: The Princess Elizabeth on the way to the funeral of her father George VI. (Marked up press photo.) I first saw this haunting image in the recently published facsimile of Cecil Beaton's scrapbooks.
Here for my uncle's funeral. London cold and sunny today, New Year's Day. Chatting with a lady in an antiquarian print shop on Cecil Court: mad as a hatter. She kept complaining about 'people who didn't understand her shop' and 'didn't belong.' She had hundreds of old postcards of Marie Studholme --every one that had ever been printed, it seemed. Alas, I'm afraid I did understand her shop.