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The Boltons
The Boltons is a street and garden square of lens shape in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England (postcode SW10). The opposing sides of the street face the communal gardens (as two non-semicircular crescents) with large expansive houses and gardens, in what is considered the third-most expensive street in the country with the average house price at 15 million pounds. The elliptical central gardens of the Boltons are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. History The Boltons was built in the middle of the 19th century by architect and journalist George Godwin on land which was originally market gardens. The area is believed to have been named after William Bolton (or Boulton) who bought land in the area in 1795. Twelve years later Bolton sold the land between the Old Brompton Road and the Fulham Road to the confectioner James Gunter. Gunter died in 1819 and his son Robert inherited the estate. He added lands ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brompton, London
Brompton, sometimes called Old Brompton, survives in name as a ward in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. Until the latter half of the 19th century it was a scattered village made up mostly of market gardens in the county of Middlesex. It lay south-east of the village of Kensington, abutting the parish of St Margaret's, Westminster at the hamlet of Knightsbridge to the north-east, with Little Chelsea to the south. It was bisected by the Fulham Turnpike, the main road westward out of London to the ancient parish of Fulham and on to Putney and Surrey. It saw its first parish church, Holy Trinity Brompton, only in 1829. Today the village has been comprehensively eclipsed by segmentation due principally to railway development culminating in London Underground lines, and its imposition of station names, including Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Gloucester Road as the names of stops during accelerated urbanisation, but lacking any cogent reference to local hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer who is best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing. While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. He drew from his wartime service and his career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels. Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, '' Casino Royale'', in 1952. It was a success, with three print runs being commissio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paddy Ridsdale
Dame Victoire Evelyn Patricia Ridsdale, Lady Ridsdale, Order of the British Empire, DBE (née Bennett; 11 October 1921 – 16 December 2009), known as Dame Paddy Ridsdale, was a British secretary and intelligence operative. She was author Ian Fleming's secretary during World War II and was the model for the character Miss Moneypenny, being M (James Bond), M.'s loyal, long-suffering secretary, who is smitten with James Bond. Career She was the wife of Sir Julian Ridsdale. She served as an intelligence operative during World War II. It was later disclosed that she had assisted Fleming's counter-intelligence efforts during World War II. She was responsible for helping deceive the Axis by creating a fictitious identity for a body that had turned up drowned in Operation Mincemeat. The body was "disguise[d] as that of a naval officer, complete with totally convincing "secret" papers showing a different plan of attack ... [t]he body, appearing to be a casualty from a shot-down plane, wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Ridsdale
Sir Julian Errington Ridsdale (8 June 1915 – 21 July 2004) was a British National Liberal and later Conservative politician and long-serving Member of Parliament (MP) for Harwich. He took a particular interest in Japan. The son of a stockbroker and nephew both of former Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Liberal MP Sir Aurelian Ridsdale, he was educated at Tonbridge School and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After being commissioned as an officer into the Royal Norfolk Regiment, he studied Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies and during the war was a military intelligence officer specialising in Japan, rising to the rank of Major. After the war, he ran a fruit farm in Sussex. His wife Victoire Evelyn Patricia "Paddy" Bennett, whom he married in 1942, was then secretary to the writer Ian Fleming. She is reported to have been a model for the character "Miss Moneypenny", secretary to James Bond. She was her husband's secretary and cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Archer
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist, life peer, convicted criminal, and former politician. Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–1974), but did not seek re-election after a financial scandal that left him almost bankrupt. Archer revived his fortunes as a novelist. His 1979 novel ''Kane and Abel'' remains one of the best-selling books in the world, with an estimated 34 million copies sold worldwide. Overall his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide. Archer became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86), before resigning after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a prostitute. In 1987, he won a court case and was awarded large damages because of this claim. He was made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently became Conservative candidate to be the first elected Mayor of London. He resigned his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Fairbanks Jr
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr., (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best known for starring in such films as ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937), ''Gunga Din'' (1939) and '' The Corsican Brothers'' (1941). The son of Douglas Fairbanks and stepson of Mary Pickford, he was first married, briefly, to actress Joan Crawford. Early life Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. was born in New York City; he was the only child of actor Douglas Fairbanks and his first wife, Anna Beth Sully, the daughter of wealthy industrialist Daniel J. Sully. Fairbanks' father was one of cinema's first icons, noted for such swashbuckling adventure films as '' The Mark of Zorro'', ''Robin Hood'' and '' The Thief of Bagdad''. Fairbanks had small roles in his father's films '' American Aristocracy'' (1916) and ''The Three Musketeers'' (1921). His parents divorced when he was nine years old, and both remarried. He lived with his mother i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycée Français Charles De Gaulle
The Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, usually referred to as the Lycée or the French Lycée, is a French co-educational primary and secondary independent school, independent day school, situated in South Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. It is managed by the Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger, Agency for French Teaching Abroad, AEFE, with its curriculum accredited by the Minister of National Education (France), French National Ministry of Education and overseen by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There is a "British Section" for English-speaking pupils in the secondary classes, preparing for General Certificate of Secondary Education, GCSEs and Advanced Level (UK), A-levels. In 2008 part of the school's primary classes were transferred to a site in Fulham, the "Marie d'Orliac" school. There are three other primary "feeder" schools elsewhere in London, the André Malraux school in Ealing and Wix School in Clapham. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Kensington
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the railways in the late 19th century and the opening (and shutting) and naming of local tube stations. The area has many museums and cultural landmarks with a high number of visitors, such as the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Adjacent affluent centres such as Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Kensington, have been considered as some of the most exclusive real estate in the world. Geography As is often the case in other areas of London, the boundaries for South Kensington are arbitrary and have altered with time. This is due in part to usage arising from the tube stops and other landmarks which developed across Brompton. A contemporary definition is the commercial area around the Sout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycée Français De Londres
In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between the ages of 15 and 18. Pupils are prepared for the ''baccalauréat'' (; baccalaureate, colloquially known as ''bac'', previously ''bachot''), which can lead to higher education studies or directly to professional life. There are three main types of ''baccalauréat'': the ''baccalauréat général'', ''baccalauréat technologique'' and ''baccalauréat professionnel''. School year The school year starts in early September and ends in early July. Metropolitan French school holidays are scheduled by the Ministry of Education by dividing the country into three zones (A, B, and C) to prevent overcrowding by family holidaymakers of tourist destinations, such as the Mediterranean coast and ski resorts. Lyon, for example, is in zone A, Marseille is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgo Fidelis Convent Senior School
The Laurels School is a Roman Catholic independent day school for girls. It is located in the Upper Norwood area of the London Borough of Croydon in England. The school relocated to its present site in September 2021. The site is the former location of Virgo Fidelis Convent Senior School, a Roman Catholic voluntary aided secondary school for girls. The school site is also shared with The Cedars School for boys. History The original building on the site was a hunting lodge (of unknown age). In the late 1700s, the building was owned by the Earls of Bristol, and was known as Norwood House, the residence of the notable socialite Mary Nesbitt. In the early 1800s the lodge was sold and became known as the "Old Park Hotel". Virgo Fidelis Convent Senior School Mother Saint Mary (Henriette le Forestier d'Osseville; 1803–1858), who had arrived in the United Kingdom in September 1848 with the intention of establishing a school under the patronage of Cardinal Wiseman, acquired the site ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
