#the balham mystery

[honeybeelullaby]

Strange Company: A Pearl Among Poisonings: The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo

[cleoenfaserum]

FLORENCE BRAVO née Campbell died September 17 in the year 1878 at the age of 33 accused of poisoning her husband.

Perhaps a good place to start with this poisoning crime drama will be with the following story that has been dramatized. A who done it that is still a mystery.

980-1 link https://youtu.be/z5LUPHbWZ1k "Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder" A Most Mysterious Murder: The Case of Charles Bravo (TV Episode 2004) - IMDb

Wikipedia's biography ends with the Coroner’s findings that Charles Bravo, Florence deceased husband and a suspect of his murder, had been “willfully murdered by an unknown person or persons.”

or follow along reading while listening...

980-2 https://ok.ru/video/7712661637683 text https://medium.com/@cleoenfaserem/florence-bravo-née-campbell-f4d88e669cd5

source: Florence Bravo - Wikipedia

Florence Bravo (née Campbell; 5 September 1845 – 17 September 1878) was a British heiress and widow who was linked to the unsolved murder of her second husband, Charles Bravo. On 21 April 1876, after three days of agonising illness, Charles died of antimony poisoning. Although there was widespread innuendo in the media about Florence's role in “The Balham Mystery”, following the second inquest into his death, no one was indicted, and the case never reached the courts due to lack of evidence. During the Coroner's inquest, the lurid details of Florence's past affair with Dr James Gully, a married man 37 years older, became a topic of intense fascination, covered by newspapers ranging from The Times and The Daily Telegraph to The Illustrated Police News, as well as publications in Europe, Australia, and the United States.

Previously known as Florence Ricardo, she had inherited £40,000 after her first husband, an alcoholic, drank himself to death. Florence herself lived for only two years after Charles Bravo's death, and died at the age of 33.

980-3 https://ok.ru/video/7712715901491 NOTES

Episode 1 link https://youtu.be/NaKbSKDKoqg

Episode 2 link https://youtu.be/uyrJDDukmwA

Episode 3 link https://youtu.be/zbYYWAyfWVM

Charles Bravo - Wikipedia

Florence Bravo - Wikipedia

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Victorian whodunnit solved

Murder Most English - Florence Bravo and the Balham Mystery (elizabethkmahon.com)

A Mysterious Death in Balham: Charles Bravo and the Housemaid (london-overlooked.com)

Florence Bravo | Photos | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/patisserie-valerie-unravelling-the-history-of-the-cafe-chain/

Patisserie Valerie: Unravelling the history of the café chain

Image copyright Vermeirsch family

Image caption Theo and Esther Vermeirsch, the founders of Patisserie Valerie

I was beginning to think she didn’t exist. OK, I outright speculated that she didn’t.

Madame Valerie was the Belgian founder of Patisserie Valerie, who introduced fancy pastries to the English. At least that’s according to the company’s website.

The problem was that Patisserie Holdings, the owners of the now struggling chain, had no record of her. No photos, no documents, nothing. It didn’t even know her full name.

At first that seemed hard to believe, but there is one key piece of information that probably explains why so little was known about the person credited with founding the café in the 1920s.

Valerie was not her name.

But with some digging and some help, I can now make “Madame Valerie” a little less mysterious.

‘Everybody got to know her’

Esther van Gyseghem was born in Ostende in Belgium on 22 April 1900. In her early twenties she married Theophile (Theo) Vermeirsch.

Theo had visited London before his marriage and had loved it so much he moved to the city with his new wife where, in 1926, they set up a café on the corner of Dean Street and Old Compton Street in London’s Soho.

They called it Patisserie Valerie.

“I don’t know why the café was called Patisserie Valerie. There are no Valeries in either of the families that I have ever heard of,” Helene (Leni) Vermeirsch, the niece of Theo and Esther, tells me.

Theo had trained as a baker and did all the catering. Esther was front of house, working on the till and serving customers.

According to Leni, Esther always sat at the first table after the counter “so everybody who came in got to know her”.

And over the years she became known as Madame Valerie – a rare example of a company giving its founder a name.

Image copyright Vermeirsch family

Image caption The Vermeirsch family at Patisserie Valerie, Old Compton Street in 1950. Esther “Madame Valerie” is third from the left, Leni is the child on the right

“She was a lovely aunt to my sister and myself. She was very generous to us,” Leni says.

Theo died in 1947 leaving Esther in sole charge.

“A woman who ran her business on her own from 1947 to 1965 – I never remember her complaining. She did it well, people liked it and that was her life,” says Leni.

Following Theo’s death, Leni’s father helped Esther with the baking at the café and Leni can remember watching him work.

“I loved it. I found it all rather thrilling,” she tells me.

“I was always in the bakery poking around at what they were doing and watching my father roll out, with an enormous rolling pin, great big slabs of dough that he was then putting chunks of butter in, to fold up to make the croissants.”

German attacks and celebrity diners

Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the history of Patisserie Valerie happened in 1941.

Air raid records show a devastating Luftwaffe attack on London in the early hours of 11 May. Among the properties destroyed was the original Patisserie Valerie.

Image copyright Vermeirsch family

Image caption Esther Vermeirsch (centre), her sister Christina (to her right) and sister-in-law Selma (far right)

Following the destruction of their business and their home – they lived on the top floor of the building – Theo and Esther were evacuated to Norfolk.

But it didn’t take long for them to get up and running again. According to Leni they had reopened on Old Compton Street before the end of the war.

The business remained a popular venue in London, attracting celebrities – the boxers Henry Cooper and his twin brother George were regulars.

Esther eventually sold the business in 1965 and retired to Balham in south London where she lived with her sister and brother-in-law.

She died in 1975.

Future in question

Leni’s memories of her aunt fill in some of the details about the early history of Patisserie Valerie.

But some questions remain. Leni is not sure who her aunt sold the business to. She thinks it was to an Italian businessman based in Soho.

There is also the question of the Fonteyn family. The Soho Clarion magazine credited them as the founders of Patisserie Valerie and there is some evidence of them in Soho and in the catering business.

But Leni has no recollection of that name.

Right now the survival of Patisserie Valerie is in the balance. Accounting irregularities that first emerged in October last year forced the company into administration last month.

Some 71 cafés have already been closed and 122 are up for sale.

Leni, though, is not emotional about the current problems.

“What ended up being called Patisserie Valerie did not bear any resemblance to the original one. It was valuable because it was unique.”

[mccullytech]

Christmas themed murder mystery is coming to Balham

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a sleuth then you might want to head down to Balham next month. from This Is Local London | News https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/17220876.christmas-themed-murder-mystery-is-coming-to-balham/?ref=rss

[bespokekitchesldn]

Christmas themed murder mystery is coming to Balham

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a sleuth then you might want to head down to Balham next month. from This Is Local London | News https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/17220876.christmas-themed-murder-mystery-is-coming-to-balham/?ref=rss

[tortuga-aak]

The 20 best movie plot twists of the 21st century, ranked

Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox, Regency Enterprises

It’s the shock of seeing Norman Bates, knife in hand, clad in his mother’s clothes, grinning maniacally in the swinging lamplight. It’s the realization that Kevin Spacey spun us a bunch of lies, and was actually Keyser Söze the whole time. It’s finally connecting “I see dead people” with Bruce Willis being shot at the beginning of “The Sixth Sense.”

When movies pull the rug from under us, it’s one of the greatest thrills that cinema can provide.

As Hollywood continues to reboot countless old properties, it’s easy to think that the days of original and surprising storytelling are long behind us. But these films prove that Hollywood still has a few tricks up its sleeve, ones that have kept us talking for years, and have cemented their place in film history.

Beware of spoilers! Here are the best plot twists of the 21st century:

20. “Unbreakable” (2000)

Disney

An incredibly unique and unexpected film about super-hero comic books and their myths, which at the end reveals itself to be its own unique origin story. Bruce Willis is an average guy, David Dunn, who after surviving a train crash that killed 130 passengers, wonders if he may have special powers. Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic book store owner with a rare bone disorder, uses his deep superhero knowledge to help David mine his past and test his abilities until he finally discovers he can see the criminal acts of those he comes into contact.

M. Night Shyamalan directs the story as if it is a mysterious drama, with only a hint of the supernatural underneath as we too wonder what is exactly happening and if there might be some truth in Elijah’s comics. When David shakes Elijah’s hand at the end of the movie he sees that his guru has orchestrated terrorist attacks, including his train crash, as he tells David his purpose in life is to be the villain “Mr. Glass” to David’s superhero. The twist reveals that we have been watching what, in retrospect, feels like an incredibly naturalistic story of what it must be like to discover you really are a superhero. –Chris O’Falt

19. “Get Out” (2017)

Universal Pictures

A half-century after “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?,” writer Jordan Peele revisited the iconic film’s plot for his directorial debut: Awkwardness ensues when a white woman (Allison Williams) brings her black boyfriend (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her supposedly progressive parents (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford). On a $4 million budget, Peele not only modernized the relevant-as-ever social satire — “Get Out” premiered at Sundance four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration ushered white supremacists back into the White House — but also made a resplendent mystic-action-horror-revenge fantasia.

The Armitage family’s evil ploy is to help their loved ones live forever by implanting their brains into younger black bodies, subject to secret slave-like auctions. In the finale, the bad guys are slaughtered and a jocular TSA official saves our hero and countless future victims. Perhaps the biggest twist of all is Peele’s table-flip to anyone who thought he was just a sketch-comedian. —Jenna Marotta

18. “Atonement” (2007)

Universal Pictures

A seven-time Oscar nominee unfolding mostly over one day at lush London estate in 1935, Joe Wright’s drama hinges on the false testimony of teen playwright Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan). She’s jealous that her older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), has charmed the housekeeper’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy). As comeuppance for Robbie accidentally entrusting Briony to deliver a racy love note, Briony claims he raped a Tallis cousin, sending him to prison.

Robbie is freed to enlist in World War II, and the audience learns that he rekindled his romance with Cecilia, now estranged from her family (she knows Briony lied; the actual rapist married Cousin Lola with Briony looking on). However, this too is a fiction, from Briony’s novel: Robbie and Cecilia respectively perished in Dunkirk and the Balham train station bombing. Christopher Hampton penned the 2007 film, based on Ian McEwan’s acclaimed saga. —JM

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