The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present

Working for Oliver Bernard and the early days of PEL LtdAuthor(s): Eileen ParkerSource: The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1890-1940, No. 8 (1984), pp. 50-57Published by: The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the PresentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41806282 .

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Plate 1 . Oliver P. Bernard, 1937. (courtesy Bruce Bernard).

Working for Oliver Bernard and the early days of PEL Ltd

by Eileen Parker

Miss Parker worked as secretary to Oliver Bernard on the Strand Palace Hotel commission, and then from 1931 until the outbreak of war at the first PEL showroom at 15 Henrietta Place, Cavendish Square. In 1945 she became manager of the showroom.

Working for Oliver Bernard The first office was in an embryo suite of bedrooms on an upper floor of the carcass of the Strand Palace Hotel ... a discordant hive of electric drills, screaming saws, thundering hammers, with which all communications including telephones had to compete. In fact, so far as telephones were concerned, with two outside Hnes on an office desk it was possible to 'phone from one to the other without the recipient of the call being aware that the speaker was only three feet away. This figured as one of the many practical jokes perpetrated in this somewhat astonishing office.

It would be interesting to know if there is as much mad activity in the present day office as afflicted that of OPB's. Crazy expeditions round the top parapet of the hotel, dropping of bricks within an inch of the unsuspecting victim's foot, sprinkling of fuel around the edges of a table doing service as a filing cabinet and setting light to it, mercifully avoiding destruction.

Probably the most hair-raising occurrence was when the office moved to Cadby Hall. OPB, having departed for the Continent, a table-tennis tournament was organised in one of the studios and was in full swing, when he suddenly, unexpectedly returned. The impact may be imagined!

In the midst of this reigned Oliver Bernard, whom we knew as OPB or The Little Man . . . which referred only to his lack of inches. He was short and very dapper, with a rather large head.

He had very expensive tastes. His suits were made by a famous Savile Row tailor who possibly flinched slightly at his demands, for all the suits had double- breasted waistcoats with wide lapels worn under a single- breasted slightly waisted jacket, worn open, and there were probably more than the standard number of buttons on his cuffs. Colours and materials were always uncon- ventional, and one suit of fine brown-and-white check we called his 'Newmarkets'. With these he wore shirts either yellow or pink and sometimes broadly striped. He always wore white or yellow socks and handmade shoes, sometimes crocodile. An overcoat of warm, well-lined and superb cloth with a small fur collar had lines of stitching A m round the hem which made it slightly flared; the felt hat was very slightly cowboy. All unconventional but impeccable. I

OPB was slightly deaf and usually sat with right i hand cupping his ear. He had a terrifying tem- I per and was a vigorous 'thrower' . . . and often Ě a roll of drawings would follow the back of an ■ unfortunate draftsman fleeing from his wrath. He was believed to have thrown his typewriter from a window at home, catch- ing the top joint of a finger which remained permanently bent. ^ His wife was a Christian Scientist and OPB tried valiantly and very expensively to deny his indispositions with constant cheques going to practi- tioners for remote healing sessions - but occasionally 50

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sending the office boy out for a bottle of cascara évacuant which he then held in his pocket as a sort of talisman.

He could be very amusing - utterly impossible - kind - and a bully. He could, and did, strike terror into the hearts of contractors, reducing some of them nearly to tears, but he could suddenly forget it all and become impish and human.

Yet out of all this, camé superb drawings, unique ideas crystallised and foundations were laid for work which had never hitherto been attempted, including the stunning entrance in glass, steel and lights of the Strand Palace Hotel and the wonderful marble murals in the Coventry Street Corner House featuring fabulous landscapes of forest and waterfall, fashioned largely from the natural marking of the marble specially selected on site by OPB in the Italian quarries. Earlier OPB had been a theatrical designer in America, and, during the first World War, was a camouflage expert and was acutely aware of the visual impact of colours and light. He was an arch innovator - seeing new possibilities in traditional materials as well as the potential of new ones.

Like so much done in the twenties and thirties when work such as his had been frowned upon, even derided, it seems that with the usual passage of time in fashion of all kinds, his is now treated with interest, curiosity - and even respect!

The Early Days of PEL Ltd The motives for creating PEL were, one suspects, a mixture of nepotism and commercial foresight and it must not be forgotten that it was based on the tremendous technical expertise of Accles and Pollock who could do everything possible with steel tubing, including the almost impossible, turning it inside out.

At that time, although 'small' may not have been exactly beautiful, it was intensely personal and, therefore, felt like adventure. Only those who have been in at the beginning of such an enterprise can comprehend the emotions evoked as the building rises from its foundations.

And oddly enough, the inspiration for PEL arose in the hectic reconstruction of the Strand Palace Hotel where pioneer interior decoration was being done by Oliver Bernard, and where in the new Entrance Hall constructed of glass, stainless steel and revolutionary lighting, two directors of Accles and Pollock saw two tubular steel cantilever chains imported from Europe, whereupon they contacted Oliver Bernard and subsequently appointed him consultant designer. At this point, I as a very green and not very efficient secretary, moved from his office to PEL.

The first suggestion for the name of the new Company was 'HARMONY FURNITURE' which fortunately never got off the ground but which will explain whey some of our first tables were coded 'H.T.' . . . ie (Harmony Table). We then started life as Practical Equipment Limited and after a fairly short period this was reduced to the initial letters and PEL was launched.

A range of furniture was then produced largely 'based' on the catalogue of the greatest of all steel furniture manufacturers - Thonet Bros of Czechoslovakia, selected by OPB together with some of his own designs and modifications.

Reference to old catalogues will show how very varied and adventurous these initial designs were, and how far ahead of anything then available in this country. We were, therefore, the 'avant-garde' of the period and, as will be seen, achieved our little hour of triumph in high places. Some of the best designs will also show that the use of the steel tubes was not merely to supply supports to carry upholstery or table tops, but was the '■ raison d'être ' of the design itself and established forms which could only be produced in manipulated steel, and not copies of what could just as easily be made of wood.

The early designs of chairs, particularly, used the unique quality of steel tubing, its flexibility . . . giving obvious additional comfort in the cantilever frame. It is ironic that forty years later, designers are crying out for just this type of chair, so long spurned by the 'four legged' advocates.

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Incorporated in these designs were such materials as armourplate glass, clear and unbreakable, for table tops through which the elegant design of the steel frame could be seen. Mirror glass, olain and peach coloured and black glass, was also used for occasional tables. There was no elastic laminate such as Formica so that table tops were therefore of glass, real timber or inlaid ino.

PVC leathercloth was confined to a horrible material called Rexine, but real hide was used extensively and could be dyed to any colour required. Those were the days when we sent a piece of coloured ribbon or fabric to Connolly Bros who matched it exactly - in addition to producing an enormous range of standard colours and finishes.

We also used fabrics extensively and had one chair which could be (and was) covered in ponyskin, as well as woven seagrass, and we imported seats and backs of cane and preformed plywood cellulosed in hard, fast and beautiful colours.

Frames were initially almost always chromium plated. Cellulose hand-sprayed finish for which we also offered to match colours, became more popular after the introduction of the first nesting chairs, R.P.6 when the patent rights were bought by PEL from the Czechoslovakian inventor in about 1934 and held thereafter for 17 years. Our first introduction to the public was a party given early in 1932 at our new showrooms at 15 Henrietta Place, Cavendish Square, London Wl.

Needless to say, on the morning of the party itself, some of the furniture had not arrived from the Works, and at midday I was inside a giant crate helping to haul out the S.P.4 chairs.

Plate 2. Entrance to the Strand Palace Hotel, designed by Oliver Bernard, 1928. (Victoria and Albert Museum).

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Plate 3 . The PEL S.P.4 Chair, 1931-2; similar to Thoneťs SS33 chair, possibly by Luckhardts (1928-9). (Victoria and Albert Museum).

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The guests at the party were mainly Press and personal acquaintances of Captain and Mrs Carew. The latter was interested in interior design and collaborated with Allan Walton, the designer of beautiful fabrics.

John Gloag of the Kynoch Press looked after our publicity and had devised an amusing card inviting people to 'quiz' the furniture, a word which intrigued The Times sufficiently to give us our first free publicity. I recall that the first order we took was during the absence through illness of the then London Manager - two small chairs and a table. I did not know quite what to do with it, and neither, it transpired, did our Head Office at Oldbury, but presumably the customer eventually got delivery. At this time, the impression given was that PEL was a rather jolly plaything devised for the amusement of several members of the hierarchy. Wives and daughters and younger sons and their friends drifted in and out and sometimes worked on exhibition stands. We lesser mortals were well aware of being the battleground of opposing groups and the Montagues and Capulets had nothing on the opposing directorate, and of Board Room divisions.

Instructions and counter instructions flew in and out of Henrietta Place, and trying to keep one's balance on the fence was part and parcel of one's terms of reference. (No easy task for one of fairly tender years with little commercial experience - but in the days when ten people, like vultures, were ready to seize your job, £3. lOs.Od., a week could not lightly be thrown away) .

The 'family' element on Exhibition stands was, however, usually good fun and gave rise to some fairly shocking but funny incidents, the best of which was at one Ideal Home Exhibition. These were ghastly affairs with large tired ladies sitting on one's best chairs, removing their shoes and unpacking their sandwiches.

At this particular Exhibition our Stand was in a Hall which had been decorated with about three-times life-size portraits of famous men. Visitors therefore walked through with their heads in the air, pointing out Ramsey Macdonald and Stanley Baldwin and other notables and ignoring our wares. This became so boring that we fitted up a dart-board in the little office and

played endless tournaments until one day there was a knock on the door and a rather agitated assistant from an adjoining stand whispered 'So sorry to interrupt, but do you know that the king of Siam is on your Stand?'

This may have been the incident which caused the Daily Mail to suggest that perhaps this Exhibition was not entirely suitable for us.

We also exhibited for many years at the British Industries Fair and in 1949 1 was given the task of producing the decoration and layout for our Stand to be completed within a period of less than three weeks. With the invaluable co-operation of the Standfitter and Buzz his marvellous foreman we produced a show dining-room and office which, at the Press preview was photo- graphed by The Times and published in the next day's edition, thus giving us our second Times free notice.

Between the years 1931 and 1939 London Office had seven managers of various and sometimes bizarre types. In 1945 I was handed the reins.

During the period before the war, we produced a range which satisfied widely differing interests and since our furniture was based on the best Continental designs coupled with the unsurpassed workmanship of Accles and Pollock in tube manipulation - and at this time the frame was often the more important part - it attracted many of the best interior designers in London.

In those days the designers seemed better known to a wider public than their modern counter- parts, perhaps because they were often slightly larger than life and very extrovert and they seemea to have a livelier approach. The concept was less of the closed intellectual shop of often dehumanised design which now so often seems to send people in revolt to the Antique supermarket and Maples' reproduction department. Furthermore, designers like McKnight Kauffer, 'Marion Dorn, Betty Joel, Serge Chermayeff covered the entire field - interiors, furniture, carpets and fabrics - all of superb workmanship. 54

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Plate 4. Miss Eileen Parker mixes a cocktail on the stand she designed for the British Industries Fair in 1949. (Miss Eileen Parker).

They were among the classics of the period and were all, at some time, customers of PEL.

Our scope was wide enough to supply the requirements of hotels from the furnishing of bedroom suites at the Savoy and Claridges with tray and luggage stands, bathroom stools and easy chairs, to lounges at the Hotel Metropole at Brighton with upholstery covered, regrettably, in tartan fabric.

Showrooms and shops where we installed easy and occasional chairs, tables and special fittings. Offices which, with the exception of filing cabinets, we could fully furnish with desks, chairs and tables. Of these, an interesting one was for Caiman Links for whom we made a desk with al" thick clear armourplated glass top - which would have been considered advanced even in 1970.

Apart from the vast export orders subsequently obtained by PEL from the Iraq, Iranian and Kuwait Oil Companies, we in London worked closely with such firms as the Army and Navy Stores of both Bombay and Calcutta and received regular visits from their Manager in India to replenish his stocks of bedroom and dining-room furniture which included dressing tables, cupboards, sideboards and tables and chairs of many types, not forgetting very attractive beds of logical steel tube design. The market in India at that time was the best outlet for domestic furniture PEL has ever had.

After the war, amongst others two contrasting export orders were for over 1 ,000 nesting chairs and tables to go with them for the Arab Legion negotiated at London Office (and I sometimes wonder how the Arab soldiers reacted to the pastel pink, blue and green table tops Ihad to select from the then very limited ranges) and furniture for outposts in Antarctica ordered by the Royal Geographical Society where delivery was dependent on the one ship a year.

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During this period the business presumably grew, at the latter part obviously stimulated by the nesting chairs which must have seen us through the Depression fairly handsomely - and the following is a brief list of other of the notable and/or notorious customers who came to Henrietta Place:

HRH the Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor). Firstly with Mrs Dudley Ward when he was looking for a suitable reclining chair for his Turkish bath. Having tried out our stools, lying at full length with bowler hat on chest - we finally made up for him an enormous chair which adjusted at every possible angle and was complete with foot rest. About three years later he returned, this time with Mrs Simpson. I unfortunately mentioned his previous visit which he had forgotten and he asked us to take back the chair as he had never used it. Refusal being impossible, we put it in the front showroom window with a discreet notice and sold it within three days to a masseur.

Viscount Mountbatten, then Lord Louis, who was furnishing rooms in his penthouse in Park Lane.

Titles innumerable from Dukes and Duchesses downward included Lord Castlerosse who was

immensely fat and rose with an S.P.4 (tub-chair) adhering to him.

A number of Maharajahs including Alwar who had sapphire shirt buttons, film star Bebe Daniels - author Beverley Nichols in huge teddy bear coat boyishly sucking a peppermint - this was the era of teddy bear coats and some of our more sinister customers looked as if they had left the coathangers in them.

The BBC became customers in 1932 and remained so for many years - not without problems.

A Woolworth heiress who wanted a gold-plated chair to match her taps and plug chains.

Young roughs from the British Union of Fascists wanting a desk for 'The Leader' and asking if we had any Jewish directors. This was the one occasion when we allowed politics to influence service to customers. We listened in on our phone extension while they discussed payment with their office, heard the anguished 'God No' when they enquired about trade references, and as near as it was possible, threw them out.

Asked the question 'have you known any embarrassing moments' we could all recount them, no doubt starting with the time honoured one, subsequently much embellished of HRH Princess Beatrice an ample Lady, at a function at Middlesex Hospital, falling through the canvas seat of an R.P.7 nesting chair!

Among the most poignant at London Office concerned the S.P.9B cantilever armchair incor- rectly made with the front legs vertical. PEL's then most important customer, the buyer for the Iranian Oil Company, called at the showroom, sat heavily on the front edge of the chair which skidded from under him and crashed into the plate glass window, depositing him under the table. It was a crisis which could only successfully have been illustrated by H. M. Bateman. But to my amazement and relief he scrambled to his feet, blaming himself for his carelessness. Not long after he called again, this time with his wife and repeated the same agonising performance, bringing down with him one of our glass ashtrays. His wife soundly berated him for his carelessness and was greatly embarrassed by the broken pieces of ashtray. I was aware of what the trouble really was but had not been able to convince anybody else. The final drama occurred when we were visited by a somewhat acidulated lady who also sat on the chair and disappeared under the table. At her moment of departure, the door opened and an enormously tall coloured gentleman walked in and rushed forward with cries of horror and scooped the lady up. She turned, saw the black and anxious face, let out a piercing scream, gathered up her goods and rushed away. After this, the chairs were removed from the showroom until their frames had been replaced.

When the war started normal business in London ended. During the period of the phoney war we did a brisk trade in ARP stretchers. These were a Production Controller's dream. Steel wire mesh was secured to two tubes with a couple of bends at each end to form handles, and made in two lengths - hundreds and hundreds of them, all exactly the same, enamelled dark green. We had to wait for our age-groups for call-up, and since selling stretchers did not take up the whole of our day, my assistant and I shared certain hours during the week, trying to be rather more useful - she digging for victory and I serving food to hungry troops in canteens at Canada

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House and the Admiralty. Finally at the end of 1941 it was agreed to close the showrooms. I joined the WRNS and my assistant went off to toil more usefully if less frivolously, in a factory.

During those last days we went to work each day wondering if Henrietta Place would still be there. We would have to go round devious ways to avoid cordoned off streets where time bombs had fallen. The plate glass window was finally blown out, was boarded up and remained so for some time after the war ended, glass being at a premium. 15 Henrietta Place was left to the redoubtable Mrs Drake our faithful cleaner who kept it in first class order until we returned.

In 1945 we re-opened - with no order book and facing difficulties which it is hard to believe nowadays. If a customer wanted to buy steel furniture he had to obtain an 'N' form for steel, and having raised our hopes he mostly failed to do so.

We produced a rather charming range of cantilever chairs and simple tables of anodised aluminium tube which tided us over for a short while. We had to face tremendous competition from literally hundreds of small firms who had been engaged in production of small engineering parts, and having bending machines and other equipment, as soon as steel became more plentiful, flooded the market with poor quality furniture eagerly snapped up by the public starved of all commodities for so long. We appeared to have a lot of production and organising difficulties which seemed to make us slow off the mark and at that time we lost a number of pre-war customers some of whom we later regained, but some were lost for ever.

So for the second time we started from scratch. 1931 and 1945.

Subsequent development is recorded and our efforts have been directed at quite different markets.

History, according to Henry Ford, is bunk. Some of us who contributed to the history of PEL are not so sure!

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