Cookhouse Witley Camp 1918. This painting is in the Canadian War Museum. 'English artist Anna Airy was hired to paint a kitchen at the Canadian training camp at Witley, south of London, England.' Anna Airy is an unsung genius if there ever was one.

Shop for Machining 15-inch Shells: Singer Manufacturing Company, Clydebank, Glasgow 'shows a huge timber and glass roofed shed from which hang seemingly endless pulleys and chains. The workers, all of whom appear to be women, occupy the centre ground and are dwarfed by the massive shell casings which it is their task to produce in what can only be described as a state of organised chaos (here)

Readers of the Post and the Biannually will know about our admiration for, and love of, the painter Anna Airy. Since we all go to bed with images of war in our mind and wake up with them still whirling in our brain, this week on the Post images from another war a century ago, painted by Anna Airy. This is Women Working in a Gas Retort House- South Metropolitan Gas Company, London at the Imperial War Museum.'The interior view of a gasworks showing the retort process. Several women dressed in dark overalls stand at work on the floor of the gasworks. The focal point is the clouds of grey smoke and yellow flames emitted from the wall on the left of the painting.'

And then there is the whole question of what is a comfort read? Whipple is sometimes harrowing, sometime makes one cry (the scene where Ellen comes in through the French windows in Someone at a Distance and sees her marriage destroyed in a glance is guaranteed) but lastly this week we shall chose a Whipple novel and in this case Greenbanks, about a grandmother's very close relationship with her granddaughter. It is a perfect weekend read. And it's the Perspective at the moment though this will be changed over the weekend.

A comfort read is much needed when all around us people are going down with Covid (luckily quite mild) or a horrible nameless vomiting bug, ugh. So it's Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary today which is of course sad but completely takes one to another world. This is Hopetoun, a house very like the one Rose ran away from after she met the love of her life.

The trouble about the phrase comfort read is that it gets perilously close to nostalgia read, to which we are so allergic. There is not much to be nostalgic about in Flush but rereading it, especially if you have a dog, is pure comfort. And what a marvellous preface by Sally Beauman, who would have thought that Flush was such a subversive and feminist book?

The joy of reading Miss Buncle's Book for the first time! It is now in a Classic edition and we are very happy with the painting on the cover: of course this is not exactly how we imagine Barbara Buncle (this young woman looks too strong-willed and independent) but there is something about her expression and the period feel (that green shirt!) which seemed exactly right to us.