A Covent Garden Christmas

* Season’s Greetings 2015 *

[Photographs taken in December 2015]

1. Christmas tree outside St Paul’s Church,

Covent Garden, London

2. Covent Garden ‘Apple Market’ barrows

(At the entrance to the former indoor fruit market)

3. The Covent Garden indoor ‘Apple Market’

(Seasonally decorated by large artificial mistletoe)

Formerly London’s fruit and vegetable market

Traders now sell antiques, collectables, art works, etc

4. Reindeer street decoration

(The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is in the background)

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During WW2, London’s main fruit and vegetable market remained at Covent Garden as it had done since 1670. In 1973 the fruit and vegetable market moved to New Covent Garden at Nine Elms, S.W. London about 3 miles (c. 5 kilometres) from its original site.

Between 1973 and 1980 the original Covent Garden was redeveloped as a popular shopping, tourist, theatrical and entertainment district, as seen in the photographs above. Christmastime at Covent Garden in 2015 was rather different to Christmastime during the Second World War, especially that of December 1940 when London was being bombed on most nights. 

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French Resistance Exhibition in Cumbria

1. The British and French flags hang side-by-side

Honouring a WW2 agent, Sister Olga Baudot de Rouville

(A member of the ‘PAT’ escape and evasion network)

[Cumbria Archives, Whitehaven (Dec. 2015 / Jan. 2016)] 

2. Information board summarising the exhibition:

“A most remarkable woman”

(Mlle. Maud Olga Andrée Baudot de Rouville)

[The exhibition is based on her personal collection]  

3. Mr and Mrs Tim Heslop at the exhibition opening

With a Red Cross uniform of Olga Baudot de Rouville.

Tim Heslop’s father was Dr John Heslop. M.C.   

[Dr Heslop worked with Olga in the P.O.W. hospital at Lille]

4. French Christmas card sent to Olga (21 December 1945)

[It was sent by her friend Paula from Mouvaux, Nord] 

5. A personal business card and a 1946 New Year Card

[Part of the personal collection of Olga Baudot de Rouville]

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Captain Michael V.P. Fleming (1913 – 1940)

1. WW1 memorial, Palace of Westminster, London

Inside Westminster Hall [Photo taken with permission]

Remembering M.P.s Lords and officers killed in WW1

Major Valentine Fleming. M.P. (1882 – 1917) is listed

2. Captain Michael Fleming (1^st left) & other officers

4^th Battalion, Oxford & Bucks. L.I.  

Taken at Attiches, France (March 1940)

Courtesy of Cumbria County Archives / Fleming family.

3. The Catholic University (‘Catho’), Lille

Staff and student accommodation building 

(This is across the road from the chapel)

Where wounded B.E.F. officers were cared for (1940)

4. Captain Michael Valentine Paul Fleming's headstone

Lille Southern Cemetery, France (Grave 5/B/29)

Photograph taken with permission 

5. Addresses in a post-war diary and address book

It belonged to Sister Olga Baudot de Rouville

(A Red Cross nurse in the P.O.W. hospital at Lille)

Bottom left is the name & address of Mrs Letitia Fleming

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