‘I was able to get on well with everyone below stairs and above, or so I thought until I began working for Lady Astor…’
In 1929, Yorkshire lass Rosina Harrison became personal maid to Lady Astor: the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat and wife of one of England’s wealthiest lords.
Lady Astor was brilliant yet tempestuous, but outspoken Rose gave as good as she got. For 35 years a battle of wills and wits raged between the two women, until an unlikely friendship began to emerge.
The Lady’s Maid is a captivating insight into the great wealth ‘upstairs’ and the endless work ‘downstairs’, but it is Rose’s unique relationship with Lady Astor that makes this book a truly enticing read.
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Published in 2011 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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First published in the UK with the title Rose: My Life in Service
by Cassell & Company in 1975
Copyright © The Estate of Rosina Harrison and
The Estate of Leigh Crutchley 1975
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Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
The Astor Households, 1928
Foreword
1. Childhood
2. I Go into Service
3. Meeting the Astors
4. My Lady and My Duties
5. Coming to Terms with My Job
6. Entertaining in the Grand Manner
7. The Astor Family
8. A Family in Wartime
9. Achieving My Ambition
10. Religion and Politics
11. Last Years
Copyright
ALTHOUGH THIS BOOK is about domestic service it is also about people, and apart from myself about one person in particular: Nancy, Lady Astor. There have been others who have written of my lady’s personal and political life. Some have spoken highly of her, others have been savagely critical. I am not like any of them. To begin with I haven’t the use of words that they have, nor have I their education or their kind of background, so I have kept away from the parts of Lady Astor’s life that I was not able to understand and have written about those that I could. This may have given an uneven portrait of her, but everyone has to write from a position and mine was at least one that kept me in contact with her every day for thirty-five years. There were times and places where I was not able to observe her closely and to tell of these I have had to rely on the memories of those of her staff who were present. Always though they have been the servants’ views of her, not the opinions of associates and friends in her own class.
My life with my lady was one of constant conflict and challenge, and despite occasional wounds on both sides, one that we enjoyed hugely. Although divided by rank and money we had similar natures and I think it is true to say that we always respected each other. I hope my writing will cause no hurt to anyone. None is intended and the last thing I wish to do is to spoil the image of a lady who over the years became the expression of my own life. Whatever else it is, this book is the truth as I saw it.
I am grateful to so many people for helping me to prepare it. To Cyril Price; to Frank and Ronald Lucas of Walton-on-Thames, to Edwin Lee, Charles Dean, Frank Copcutt, Noel Wiseman and Gordon Grimmett, who have filled in the gaps; to my sisters Olive and Ann, who always had faith and so gave me courage; to Desmond Elliott, my agent, Michael Legat, my publisher, and Mary Griffith, my editor; to Jenny Boreham, who typed and retyped with unflagging energy, and finally to Leigh ‘Reggie’ Crutchley, to whom I dedicate this book.
I WAS BORN in 1899 in a pretty little village, Aldfield, near Ripon in Yorkshire. It’s very near that famous old ruin Fountains Abbey. The village and the land surrounding it were owned then by the Marquess of Ripon who lived at Studley Royal. I suppose, though I was never conscious of it, that he dominated our lives and those of everybody who lived on his estate from the farmers downwards. He was a kind of benevolent dictator. The men would touch their forelocks or doff their caps to him and to her ladyship and the women would curtsy. It wouldn’t have done to have offended him in the slightest way, but speaking for our family this was unlikely; we knew our place. By that I don’t mean that we were subservient. Knowing your place was a kind of code of behaviour at that time and we followed it to the letter. In any case there wasn’t time to think about the rights and wrongs of it; people were all too busy working and bringing up a family for that.
My father was employed as a stonemason by the Marquess of Ripon. It was a skilled trade, fashioning the stones or slates and repairing buildings on the estate. He also helped to preserve Fountains Abbey. His wage was £1 a week. He was also sexton and caretaker for our church at Aldfield and the one at Studley. This brought in another thirty shillings a year and it was augmented when there were weddings or funerals. He was also the gravedigger and earned a few extra shillings by tending the graves, weeding them and seeing to the flowers. He even made a little more in the summer by scything the grass in the churchyard, stooking it into a small hayrick and selling it to a nearby farmer.
Before she married, my mother was laundrymaid at Tranby Croft and Studley Royal which was how she met my father. They must have been pleased with her work at the big house because when Dad and she set up home together she continued to do the household and personal laundry for the Marquess and Marchioness at our home. Clothes! I grew up hating the sight of them. The only time our kitchen was free of them was on Saturdays and Sundays. I must have seen more of ladies’ and gentlemen’s underwear than was good for me by the time I left home. We only saw the fire at weekends or when we were baking or cooking; at all other times there would be a clothes-horse surrounding it. Dad used to complain but he knew there was really no use his grumbling, it brought in the extra money that was so necessary. I never knew how much and I don’t think Dad did, but Mum always seemed to have what was needed in a crisis.
There were four of us children: I was the eldest, then came my brother Francis William and sisters Suzanne and Olive, all at two-yearly intervals. I was christened Rosina, but since this was bound to be abbreviated to Rose, my mother’s name, and since she was not going to have the distinction of ‘Old’ Rose, I have always been called ‘Ena’ by my family. It’s the sort of situation that should have been thought about before I was christened, as it has caused a lot of confusion and irritation during my life.
People have often said to me how lucky I was to be brought up in a village in the beautiful countryside with the freedom of the fields and lanes, the simplicity of life among animals and above all in peace. It sounds lyrical as I write it and perhaps in a way it was, but people forget and sometimes I do that for the most part life was continual hard work even as a young child. From the time any of us can first remember we had to play our part in the running of the house. Mum and I would get up before six every morning. Dad had to set off for work at half-past. He walked to the lodge at Fountains Abbey to get his orders from the foreman and be told where he had to go to for the day. At one time he cycled but he had been struck by lightning which made him too nervous to ride a bicycle ever again.
My first job was to lay the kindling wood and to get the fire going. We burnt logs which Dad and I had to cut with a cross-cut saw from a load of timber he bought off the estate. We didn’t use coal; it wasn’t necessary and it cost money. Even the baking was done with wood, thin pieces cut to size which we poked under the oven to get it to the right heat. Then there was the water to be fetched in buckets from the pump outside or, if it was a fine summer and the well there had dried up, from the one farther down in the village. The small boiler in the fireplace had to be filled. This and the kettle were the only supplies of constant hot water. After that I helped Mum get Dad’s breakfast and of course there were my brother and sisters to be got up, helped with their dressing and generally hurried up and shouted at.
It was a relief to get to school. I enjoyed learning. The building was typical of the time. There were two classrooms and we were taught by the headmaster and his wife, a Mr and Mrs Lister, just the three R’s with a little geography, history, art and, for the girls, sewing and embroidery. Opposite the school there was a field where we used to play football. I used to keep goal at one end and Mr Lister at the other. I loved it. Apart from the fact that I was good at it and very few balls got past me, it gave me the opportunity to use my voice. I’d scream encouragement and advice from beginning to end of the game and I could be heard all over the village. When I went home my mum would be angry with me and tell me off about my unladylike behaviour. It didn’t make any difference – I’d be at it again the next time. The game used to take the toes out of my shoes so eventually Mum made me wear clogs. I didn’t mind, it was after all true Yorkshire footwear. I remember once being dressed in a lovely little bolero with a wide skirt and with orders to take great care of them. I couldn’t resist playing football and I caught my foot in the hem of the skirt and nearly tore it away. I didn’t dare go back home for Mum to see so I went into the schoolhouse and together Mrs Lister and I sewed it back again.
I learnt a lot in school which was to be useful to me in later life, particularly through reading and writing. I always enjoyed writing and receiving letters. I kept many that I think are going to refresh my memory as I write this book. Whereas most children left school when they were fourteen I stayed on until I was sixteen. There were reasons for this as Mum and I had plans for my future. I believe that those two extra years when Mr and Mrs Lister gave me occasional individual tuition were of the greatest value to me.
During the lunch break, or as we called it, the dinner hour, I’d go home for my meal. When I’d eaten it I’d go into the wash-house and turn the mangle while Mum fed it with the morning’s washing. When school finished in the afternoon I’d go back to help Mum get Dad’s tea, which was his meal of the day. After that was cleared up I’d have to knit so many rows of Dad’s socks. This I found unrewarding work and they never seemed to get any longer. They did, of course, since I kept him provided with them for many years.
After knitting there was the needlework, the darning and mending, getting the children to bed and then getting there myself. On Saturdays as well as the ordinary jobs I had to clean and blacklead the kitchen range. The blacklead came in blocks like soap. It was kept in a jam-jar and every time I used it I’d have to pour cold water on it and work at it until it produced a sort of paste. This was brushed on to the stove and finally polished until it shone. When I’d finished I must have looked a terrible sight for I had porous skin which absorbed any of the blacklead that got on it, and plenty seemed to. The family all got a good laugh out of me on Saturdays which I thought was very unkind of them at the time and more so now that I think of it again. Then the steel fender had to be emery-papered and polished.
I must say that by the time I had finished with it the stove looked a lovely sight. It deserved to be, because it was the most important piece of furniture, if I can call it that, in the house. It was the means whereby we lived. I shall never forget it; there was the oven on one side, the boiler on the other, and in between the grate and a wreckin, a sort of iron bar across the top. From this we would hang the kettle, a big black iron one which was almost permanently over the fire, or, when required, the frying-pan, one with a long vertical handle that hung over the flames. It could be adjusted by a chain which was fastened to the wreckin. In the evening our two cats would creep into the kitchen, jump up and sit each side of the grate, one on the oven and the other on the boiler. It’s the kind of family scene one never forgets.
Another of my Saturday jobs was to clean Dad’s boots for Sunday. In the afternoon whenever it was fine, we children would go out gathering wood for kindling. Studley Park was a good hunting-ground and there was a big copse near us, but we didn’t dare go often since pheasants were reared there and the keepers didn’t care to have anyone disturbing them. We almost used to welcome a storm or a high wind during the week because it made our task so much easier.
As I grew older Dad developed what was called in those days a weak heart, so it was the duty of the family to relieve him of whatever work we could. Then it was that I acquired another Saturday chore: lighting and stoking the church boilers as well as helping Mum with the cleaning and polishing there. Saturday was also bath-night which was just as well with me having done so much dirty work. In the winter I had to make do with a sort of wash-down. I’d stand naked in a large tin bowl of water in front of the kitchen fire, but in summer I used to luxuriate in the wash-house outside by heating the water in the copper and then filling the big dolly tub. Eventually the day arrived when Dad came back from Studley Royal with a lovely hip bath which they had discarded. We felt like millionaires from then on. I didn’t know what it was like to lie in a bath until I went into service.
However, Sundays, while they were different, were not days of rest. I was awake more or less at the usual time, and went up to the church to stoke the boilers. If there was an eight o’clock communion service I’d ring the church bell and then act as server to the vicar. I went back home for breakfast and we all got ready for the morning service. Dad and I used to sing in the choir. I enjoyed that; occasionally I’d have to sing a solo which I liked even better. Sunday lunch, or Sunday dinner as we called it, was a sort of ritual. It was the meal of the week with the best of whatever was in the larder at the time and of course always a Yorkshire pudding followed by pies and tarts.
Nobody could accuse my mum and dad of being sectarian because as soon as lunch was over and cleared up, we children were sent to the Wesleyan chapel for Sunday School. I questioned Mum about the rights and wrongs of this one day. ‘One place is as good as another,’ she said, ‘and I know where you are and that you’re out of mischief.’ I suppose it made a change. It also started our library, for as regular attenders we each of us got a book a year, an improving one like John Halifax, Gentleman which I found very hard going and didn’t read until many years later.
The evening found us in church once again. You might think that we would have sickened of religion but I never did. Among the memories that I hold dearest are the services in Studley church. They were happy occasions with the farmers and villagers all cleaned and polished and dressed in their best clothes, singing at the tops of their voices. It was these weekly get-togethers that gave us a feeling of community and a sort of pride in belonging to our village. Studley church was very beautiful and it was ours. During my life in service I was helped by my religion and my childhood memories of it. Although we were expected to behave in a Christian manner it was seldom possible for us to go to church and be practising Christians as it would have interfered with our duties. I don’t say this with rancour but as a fact.
Sunday was the only day our parlour came alive. No one was allowed in it during the week. It was the same in all the village homes. We had a piano, it was the symbol of respectability, which Mum had bought from her laundry money. We children had lessons at fourpence a week as we got older and although none of us learnt a lot we were able to strum a few notes to help as a background for our sing-songs. When the 1914 war came and the military camps were built nearby, Sunday nights at the Harrisons’ were great occasions for the troops and for us. Mum used to sparkle as she sang ‘Goodbye Dolly Gray’, ‘Two Little Girls in Blue’, ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ and the other popular songs of the time, and even Dad would relax and be merry, partly as a result of the drink the soldiers had brought with them. It’s odd, but to me the war was a happy time, the village and the countryside seemed to come alive with the marching feet, the guns and the uniforms. There were dances, Garrison concerts, more fun generally and of course a few more babies around than there should have been!
But work had to go on and Mondays would see the laundry baskets arriving and the flags hoisted again in the kitchen. I think I should make it clear that Mum didn’t just ‘take in washing’; it was much more a full-time job, and a skilled one too. As I’ve said, she worked for the Marquess and Marchioness of Ripon, but she also did the laundry for Lady Baron of Sawley Hall, all their personal and some of their finer household linen. Even when the families went to London for the season it would still be sent to them by rail. Her employers were particular, and they could afford to be. In these days when it seems everyone is vying with each other to wash the whitest it may be of interest to know how my mother managed without any of the mechanical and other aids that are now available to everyone. Rainwater was collected in two huge wooden barrels from off the roof. It was carried by bucket to the copper, a brick-built boiler in a corner of the wash-house and heated by a coke fire from a grate underneath. When it was boiling hot the water was transferred to a long wooden tub where the clothes were carefully washed by hand in the best soap, which at that time was Knight’s Castile. Things seldom needed scrubbing as they weren’t particularly dirty, but if ever any hard rubbing was necessary it was done on a wooden scrubbing-board, the kind of thing that was used at the beginning of the pop music era as skiffle-boards.
When clean, the clothes were transferred into three different tubs for rinsing, aided by a dolly, a pole with three legs at the bottom which was turned by hand to move the clothes around in the water. If it was then necessary to boil them they were put into the copper and later rinsed yet again. Then they were put through the mangle and hung on two large angled clothes-lines in the garden where they were dried in the cleanest of country air. The more delicate things were, of course, washed entirely by hand.
The ironing was done on a table kept specially for the purpose under the kitchen window. There was an attachment that was fitted to the kitchen stove with two ledges which held the irons. This was kept red hot and Mum must have had eight to ten irons on it at any one time. There was one little round one with which she polished the gentlemen’s collars and the starched dress shirt fronts till they shone, and to this day I have kept the gophering iron with which she would twist all the fillies on the petticoats and nightdresses to make them curl out. Once ironed everything was hung around our fire to air and finally carefully wrapped in tissue paper before being packed into the laundry baskets. One of the beautiful memories of my childhood comes from sniffing at these baskets before they were closed. They were never scented with lavender bags, they didn’t need to be because they had their own particular lovely clean smell, better even than that of new-mown hay.
When I tell people today of my father’s earnings and the shillings my mother made from the washing and of how they managed to bring up a family of four children, who were fed, clothed and contented, they tend to dismiss it by saying, ‘Of course things were different then and money worth so very much more.’ Things were different. There was no National Insurance, so there was the constant fear of getting ill, of being out of work, of growing old without a family to look after you and of being buried in a pauper’s grave. There was no electricity, no sewerage, no running water, no refrigeration; fruit and vegetables came and went with the seasons. I don’t count radio, television, record players, cars and such-like because what you’ve never had you never miss, and there are some things you might well be better off without.
At that time thirty shillings a week, which was about our family income, I’ll never know for sure, was only just enough for us provided everyone played their part in making do. We needed a good manager, good neighbourliness and co-operation all round. We fed well because we lived to a large extent off the land. Rabbits were our staple meat diet. Dad brought these home. He was always ready to do a bit of extra repair work in the gamekeepers’ houses, and in return was allowed to set snares on the estate. A day I shall always remember was when Dad brought a couple of rabbits home and Mum turned to me and said, ‘Right Ena, you’re old enough to start skinning rabbits, you’ve watched me time enough, take them into the kitchen and see how you get on.’
Well, I got on all right until it came to the head, I couldn’t seem to get the skin over it and I couldn’t stand those eyes staring at me. I asked Mum if I could chop the head off but she wouldn’t let me. ‘Dad likes the brains and we don’t believe in waste in this house,’ but she did come and help me. I soon learnt, and I wish I had as many pounds now as rabbits I’d skinned by the time I was sixteen. I’ve eaten rabbit cooked in every kind of way, but even despite the variety Mum gave us we grew tired of it just as the apprentices in Scotland got sick of the sight and taste of salmon, but as I sit and think of my mother’s rabbit pies now it starts my mouth watering. Although we didn’t keep any chickens because Dad wanted the space for vegetables and fruit, which he was often able to barter for eggs, we were able to get old hens from the gamekeepers. Broody hens were much in demand in the spring to sit on the pheasants’ eggs, and when they’d done their job and the chicks were hatched out Dad was able to buy them for a few pence each. Tough birds they were but Mum knew how to cook them and to get every bit of flavour out of them.
A great delicacy which again the gamekeepers helped to provide was fawn. The Marquess kept a deer herd and every so often it would be thinned out by shooting the old stags and some of the fallow deer. It was a great and welcome sight to see Dad arriving back home with a fawn slung over his shoulders. It meant that we should eat like fighting-cocks for days. Every bit was edible; the pluck or liver was particularly tasty, but I only know that from hearsay as it was always reserved for Dad.
We cured the fawns’ pelts and the rabbit skins and sold them to a pedlar-man on his occasional visits to the village. Fish we bought from the weekly fish-cart, kippers being a great treat. Every so often Dad would have to open the sluices in Studley Park. He took a basket with him and came back with it full of eels. When I saw them my feelings were mixed. I liked the taste but hated the preparation. Having to skin them in salt played havoc with my hands and left them red and raw.
Now I have a secret to unfold. It’s something I swore to Dad I would never tell but since it was over sixty years ago that I made the promise, and since there cannot now be any severe consequences I think he’ll forgive me for breaking the confidence. Dad was a poacher. Not, I hasten to add, the kind that goes out in the dead of night with nets and snares, but nevertheless in the eyes of the law he was a poacher. He was a deadly shot with a catapult. He once boasted to me that he’d stopped a mad dog which was about to savage him by shooting it straight between the eyes. Whether that was true or not I don’t know, but what I do know, because I’ve seen him do it often, is that he could hit a pheasant at a hundred feet.
I suppose in a way I was an accomplice after the fact because I acted as lookout and also used to help him make the lead pellets to use as ammunition. There was a field opposite our parlour which seemed to attract the pheasants. Come to think of it now it’s possible that Dad used to put a bit of grain there as bait, anyway many a summer evening would find a bird pecking away in that field. If I saw it first I would alert Dad and together we’d go into the parlour and carefully open the window. He would take aim, there’d be a quick crack of elastic and nine times out of ten down would fall the pheasant.
Now this was when it got difficult: the village policeman lived next door and since there were never any other crimes committed, poaching was his speciality. Dad of course knew his movements – everyone in a village knows everyone else’s movements – so the execution was done when the policeman was on his beat. It was getting the body from the field into our house that was the difficulty. I at first volunteered to do it but Dad wouldn’t hear of that. He didn’t want my young character blackened. He’d wait until it was dark and then he’d collect it in a sack. He never got caught, though he must have been found out. As I’ve said, everyone in a village knows everyone else’s movements and someone must have known Dad’s because quite a few times when he went to collect the booty, it wasn’t there. At first he thought he must have just stunned the bird, but he knew when he’d made a certain kill and it sent him raging mad to think that someone was stealing his property, as he called it. I’d heard a saying about honour amongst thieves and I wanted to repeat it to Dad when this happened, but I didn’t have the courage. So it was, that from time to time our table was graced with a pheasant. On his way to and from work Dad would also use his catapult but only to shoot at jays or snipe. These were considered as fair game by the authorities whereas pheasant, partridge or grouse were sacrosanct.
Milk of a kind was always plentiful. I say of a kind because a farmer friend supplied the Studley Royal dairy at Fountains with milk for their butter. After the cream had been separated he brought the skimmed milk back as feed for his cattle, but he always left a can at the end of our cottage wall for us. We were also lucky with butter because Dad had an ‘arrangement’ with the dairy and they gave him a roll, about a pound and a half, whenever we needed it. Another great treat that I remember was when the farmer gave us ‘beestings’. Beestings is the first milk a cow gives off after it has calved. It was thick, rich and creamy and made lovely curd tarts.
All our bread was baked at home. Flour was ordered by the sack. Meat was bought from time to time but except for Sundays this was for Dad only. In those days the man of the house, the breadwinner, was considered all-important. He had to be kept well fed, fit and healthy. It made sense. Without him at work we could all have starved.
Clothes were expensive. There were no cheap tailors or dress-shops at that time. This might have been a problem for us, but fortunately Mum was friendly with an independent lady who had a house in the village. I think they used to meet when Mum was cleaning the church and this lady was arranging the flowers there. I know Mum was able to help her over a few things. She showed her gratitude by giving Mum clothes, mainly for us children, but sometimes there was a suit for Dad. They were secondhand of course and they didn’t fit straight away but Mum’s needle soon remedied that. They must have been good quality things because they were inherited by both my sisters. My youngest sister Olive moans to this day about never having had any new clothes as a child. She’s made up for it since, I’m glad to say.
Holidays were something we didn’t know about. We never went away as a family. I don’t think we missed anything. I had one day a year at the seaside and that was on our choir outing. I used to look forward to it, but it never came up to my expectations. I remember I was given sixpence to spend and out of that I bought a present for Mum and Dad. Mum went away for a couple of days each year to see her mother in Derbyshire and took one of the youngest children with her. Dad’s recreation was umpiring for the village cricket club, and drinking a glass of ale. Since there was no pub in our village this meant a three-mile walk, which was all right going when he knew there was something at the end of it, but not the same and perhaps a little more hazardous coming back. In his later years Mum would keep a small barrel at home for him, or at least she said it was for him but I noticed she helped herself to a glass from time to time. My main recreation as I grew older was the cinema at Ripon. I’d cycle there and back and spend the fourpence I was now given for cleaning the church and doing the boilers; threepence it was to go in and a penny for sweets. There was one dance a year held in the village, the cricket club dance at the school. This was something Mum and Dad went to together; I was left at home to look after the children.
Our lives were really almost entirely centred on the house. A home which was run by careful planning and was kept going by small personal sacrifices and by us all working together as a team. Unkind people might say that we scrounged food and clothes and accepted charity, that Mum and Dad showed no pride. In one sense they’d be right, but in another my parents were the proudest I have known and for the right reasons. They could walk head high. They worked hard, they lived well, they looked after their own and helped others, they brought up a happy family, they gave us all the will to work hard and the knowledge of the satisfaction of a job well done. It wasn’t the kind of teaching that was going to bring us a fortune, but it was a good grounding for the sort of jobs that were available to us at that time and it must have been rewarding to them both that they had their children’s love and affection to the end.
My father’s funeral was the outward sign of respect that there was for him. The entire village turned out to see him away. My mother lived longer and left Aldfield, otherwise I’m sure she would have been given a similar last tribute.
THE CHOICE OF a career for girls born into our circumstances presented no difficulty. Almost inevitably we were bound to go into service. I didn’t mind what work I did, but there was one personal snag: ever since I could remember I had had the urge to travel. I know today that when you ask any children what they want to do, ‘To travel’ is almost always the reply. It’s the fashionable thing to say. It wasn’t when I was young, it would have been considered foolishness, so I didn’t talk about it.
My mother was the first to know. We were very close and as I got older she used to confide in me and lean on me a bit. To my astonishment she didn’t laugh when I told her; her ‘We’ll have to think about it,’ was almost encouraging. She did think about it, because a few days later when we were alone together she said, ‘Remember talking about your wanting to travel, my gal? It’s not so difficult as it sounds. In service there are two servants who usually go everywhere with their masters or mistresses, valets and ladies’ maids. If you’re prepared to smarten yourself up a bit, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be a lady’s maid.’
So from then on that was my ambition. The ‘smarten yourself up a bit’ wasn’t such a backhander as it sounded. By that Mum meant that I would have to learn French and dressmaking, and ‘You’ll have to stay on at school until you’ve learnt everything they can teach you,’ she added. So the plan was made. It demanded no sacrifices from me, but it did from Mum and Dad. It meant that I should earn no money until I got my first job, that instead of contributing to the family coffers I should be a drain on them. I did suggest that I could go into service as a housemaid or kitchen-maid and then transfer, but Mum wouldn’t hear of that. ‘You’d be classed, you’d never get out of it. No, you’ve got to start as you mean to go on.’
It was arranged that I should have French lessons in Ripon, at sixpence each, and when I left school at sixteen I was apprenticed to Hetheringtons, a big dressmaking establishment in Ripon. The apprenticeship was for five years, but I only stayed for two. I’d got sharp eyes and an inquiring tongue and felt that I had learnt by then all that I needed. I was also getting itchy feet and feeling guilty about not earning any money. So when I was eighteen I told Mum I was ready to apply for my first job. Again Mum’s experience of service came in useful. ‘You’re not ready to be a fully-fledged lady’s maid and it’s no use thinking you are. I’ll write off to an agency and see if there are any vacancies for “Young Ladies’ Maids”.’
She explained to me that young ladies’ maids, or schoolroom maids, as they were sometimes called, were the junior equivalent of ladies’ maids, who had to look after the daughter of the house. In my case it was to be the daughters because I applied for and got a job with Lady Ierne Tufton, and my charges were Miss Patricia, aged eighteen, and Miss Ann, aged twelve. Understandably I was very excited at getting my first position, but strangely as I think about it now I wasn’t in the least nervous. Nor was I frightened of London. I’d never been there but Mum had told me about it. She didn’t warn me of the temptations and dangers there are there as some mums did; she seemed to have trust in me or perhaps she thought that her earlier pronouncement, made in front of all of us, that if we girls got pregnant without being married it was no good us coming back home, she wouldn’t open the door to us, was sufficient. I have often since wondered if she would have abided by what she said, but such was my fear that I never put it to the test. Mind you, at that time there wasn’t much opportunity for thinking about such things, I had to set to making my outfit, print frocks and aprons for morning wear, and dark dresses for the afternoon and evening. Once again it was Mum who found the money for everything.
The train journey to London passed very quickly. I don’t know whether Mum had said anything about not talking to strangers, but if so I ignored it. Everyone in my carriage soon knew where I was going and why, and I chatted to them all the way. I was met at King’s Cross station by Jessie, the Tuftons’ head housemaid. I had written to her and told her what I looked like and what I’d be wearing, so she recognized me and took me by taxi to the Tuftons’ town house, 2 Chesterfield Gardens, Curzon Street, Mayfair. It was a large, six-storey house next door to the Earl of Craven. I particularly mention this because he later married the daughter of the Town Clerk of Invergordon. It caused quite a stir in society at the time. I was introduced to the other servants, shown my room and put to wait in the servants’ hall until it was convenient for her ladyship to see me. I had time to reflect on things as I’d found them so far. The London I’d seen from the taxi was much what I had expected to find, the house if anything was smaller than I’d imagined, my bedroom, which I was to share with Miss Emms, was attractive and well furnished. I was not in the least daunted by my surroundings nor was I ever to be. Many people later expressed surprise at my easy acceptance of my new world but, as I told them, it takes a lot to impress a Yorkshire girl.
It was now that I didn’t seem to be able to find my tongue. I don’t know how long I sat there but it seemed like hours. When eventually I was taken upstairs and introduced to Lady Ierne I found her pleasant but stern. In turn I was introduced to Miss Patricia and Miss Ann and then handed over to Miss Emms, her ladyship’s personal maid, to be shown the schoolroom and to have my duties explained to me. Miss Emms began by giving me a sort of background history of the family and then went on to describe their country estates, Appleby Castle in Westmorland and Hothfield Place in Kent. I learnt that there were two sons, the Honourable Harry who was in the army, the Hussars, and Peter, a schoolboy at Eton; he was the youngest of the family and I was later to become very friendly with him.
My timetable and duties sounded simple as Miss Emms said them, but were complicated in practice by temperament and the course of events. I was called at seven o’clock with tea by the under-housemaid, who also laid and lit my fire. This was a privilege and a distinction bestowed on me by the rules of the servants’ hall. In my turn I had to clean the grate and lay and light the fire in the schoolroom, tidy, sweep and dust it and then go for my breakfast in the servants’ hall, which would be given to me by the underkitchen-maid. At eight o’clock I would call the two young ladies with their morning tea and gather up the clothes that they’d been wearing the night before. Doing this for Miss Ann was quite a task because she would fling them anywhere and everywhere. Miss Patricia was tidier. So indeed was Miss Ann after I’d been there a few months and was in a position to make myself felt. Then I would lay out their clothes for the day and prepare their baths, and finally when they were dressed make sure they were fully presentable.
While they were having breakfast I busied myself in their bedrooms and the schoolroom. I think I should explain here that the schoolroom didn’t look like it sounds. There were no desks or a blackboard; it was an informal sitting-room with comfy chairs, bookshelves, games and a piano. The piano was considered to be Miss Patricia’s property. She was a brilliant and gifted pianist and could have made a career out of music. It was her whole life and was so important to her because she had neuritis of the spine and was therefore unable to ride or play tennis or do the sort of things other girls of her class did at the time.
After breakfast my first job was to take Miss Ann to school. Generally the chauffeur would drive us in the car, or if it wasn’t available I’d take her by taxi. When I got back I was, as it were, at Miss Patricia’s beck and call. Whatever she wanted to do, I did. I’d go shopping with her or take her to the Aeolian Hall where she had her piano lessons and often used to practise in the studios. I would listen to her playing by the hour. It gave me a knowledge of and taste for classical music. When I say knowledge I wouldn’t know the names of the pieces or the composers but when I hear them being played on the radio I can recall and enjoy them. It’s the sort of nostalgia that other people get from hearing the popular tunes of the times. I would sometimes go to concerts with her too.
Shopping was easy from Chesterfield Gardens. It was within walking distance of Bond Street, Piccadilly and Oxford Street, though we only used Selfridge’s or Marshall & Snelgrove in Oxford Street. The other shops weren’t considered smart enough at that time. But buying was easy. The Tuftons had accounts everywhere so money never changed hands, except for little things. Sometimes we’d just go for a walk in the park. It was like Mary and her little lamb, me being the little lamb. Yet in fact I wasn’t really supposed to be a lamb – more of a watchdog. I was there to protect her, not that I ever had to, but I suppose my presence was a deterrent. I was also there so that she wouldn’t do anything rash or untoward. You might think that as my mistress she could have pleased herself what she did, but by the rules of society she couldn’t; she mustn’t demean herself in front of a servant. I’m not saying she would have, but my being there made it impossible. I suppose if she had broken the rules it would have been my duty to have told her mother, as I should have done, not directly of course – that was not my place – but if her ladyship had heard about it by gossip or hearsay she’d have said, ‘Did Miss Patricia do so and so, while you were with her yesterday?’ and I would have been bound to answer truthfully, not so much from conscience but because if I hadn’t I’d have been dismissed on the spot with no reference, which would have meant that my next job would have been hard, if not impossible, to come by.
My relationship with Miss Patricia isn’t easy for me to describe. We weren’t friends, though if she was asked today she might well deny this. We weren’t even acquaintances. We never exchanged confidences, never discussed people, nothing we said brought us loser; my advice might be asked about clothes or bits of shopping, but my opinions were never sought or given on her music or the people we met or on anything that was personal to either of us, nor did I expect it or miss it at that time. That was the accepted way of things. It was different with Miss Ann: she was younger and as she grew up was more open with me, that is until she went to finishing school in Switzerland. When she came back her attitude was the same as her sister’s. We met again almost as strangers. Our relationship grew, but it was set in a different key; very much a minor one.
Whenever I wasn’t with Miss Patricia I was kept busy at home. Clothes had to be repaired, cleaned and pressed. I didn’t have to wash any of their things. All personal laundry was done at one of their country houses, Appleby Castle; it was sent and delivered weekly. It might be thought that pressing would have come easily to me having watched and sometimes helped Mum in her work, but she dealt only with lingerie. I had to learn how to iron the various materials their frocks and suits were made of and how to clean them if they became stained. Dry-cleaning was more of a last resort in those days; it was generally considered to be harmful.
As well as repairing clothes I made quite a lot of under-linen. Material would be sent from France and Miss Emms and I would make it up into pants, slips, petticoats and vests. Underwear was very different in those days, none of the flimsy bras and knickers you get now. Bust bodices, camisoles and petticoats were much more the vogue and corsets were worn from quite a young age – made and fitted personally of course.
Late in the afternoon I’d fetch Miss Ann home from school. She would then have to change and be made presentable to go down into the drawing-room to see her mother. Then Miss Patricia would have to be dressed for the evening and there would be more tidying up to be done. If Miss Patricia went out for the evening to the theatre, a concert, a ball or a reception, I was not called upon to go with her. Generally she would join a party and the hostess would be responsible for her. If not, a suitable escort or chaperone would be found for her by Lady Ierne.
Of course if she ever went away to visit I would accompany her and so it was that I learnt that very difficult art of packing. I say difficult, because by that I mean that while it’s not hard to fill a case tidily, it is far from easy to pack it so that when you arrive at your destination you can take the things out in the same condition that you put them in – so that they are not creased, but ready to wear. I was taught some of this by Miss Emms, but there was a lot more that I had to learn by experience. Choosing what to take wasn’t easy – mistresses before they leave are apt to be a bit hasty and short with you, with their ‘Oh, the usual things, you know what I like,’ or ‘I’ll leave it to you, Rose,’ but when you get to the other end and you haven’t brought what they want it’s a very different story, and you are to blame. I soon learnt to be relentless in my questions to them. Of course you could always send for what they wanted, but more often than not by the time it arrived it was too late or they found they didn’t want it at all. Whenever we moved to Appleby Castle after the London season, almost the entire wardrobes would have to be packed and since we travelled by train it would be my responsibility to look after them. I’m proud to say that during my thirty-five years of service I never lost a piece. An interesting thing about those days was that ladies almost always travelled with their own pillow and some insisted on having their own bed linen, even if they were away for just one night.
A disadvantage about being a lady’s maid was that I could never rely on having time off so I could rarely make any plans. This meant of course that an outside social life was out of the question. I couldn’t have a steady boyfriend because he would never have put up with the haphazard hours. I didn’t miss one. In a way I suppose I was a career girl. I wanted to learn my job, to get on. The thrill of discovering London was an excitement for me in my early years there. I enjoyed the theatre and the cinema, and the busyness of the West End with its shops and people was sufficient thrill for the raw country girl that I was. There was fun to be had in the house too for although we were all kept working we were a happy lot, and we’d break off at any time to make our own fun. The staff was almost all female, the war had seen to that. Practically every available man had been conscripted. There were a cook and two others in the kitchen, four parlourmaids, three housemaids, two ladies’ maids – Miss Emms and myself – and a chauffeur; we didn’t even have an odd job man. Nor was there a butler; his duties fell on the head parlourmaid, and Major Tufton’s valeting was done by the second parlourmaid. The set-up would have seemed very strange to me a few years later, but then I accepted it because I knew no better. It was very much a time of women’s lib below stairs.
When we went to Appleby Castle the staff was augmented. Then there were two chauffeurs, two odd men, four in the pantry (parlourmaids), four kitchen-maids and four housemaids. There were also the caretakers who looked after the place all the year round, and a number of gardeners. The terraced gardens that ran down to the river Eden were a beautiful feature of the place. Hothfield Place, although lovely, was seldom visited, but again there were permanent caretakers and gardeners. It was of course part of their estate and entailed, so therefore it had to be kept up. Since there were practically no men on the staff the discipline in the servants’ hall was not so formal. ‘Pug’ was the name given to upper servants by the lower. I don’t know how or when it originated, but according to Mum it was in use in my grandmother’s time. The Pugs’ Parlour was a sitting-room-cum-dining-room used by butlers or head parlourmaids, cooks, housekeepers, valets and ladies’ maids. During my time in service meals were taken there by the senior staff at all times, but before the First War it was the custom that at luncheon they would have their first courses in the servants’ hall with the butler presiding at the head of the table and the other servants seated in order of precedence, and then take their sweet course and coffee in the Pugs’ Parlour. They were always waited on by the hall boy, odd man or under-parlourmaid.
I suppose the attitude towards our behaviour and conversation could be described as pernickity. I think that it was easier to accept the procedure when there were menservants and the butler was in charge. That was how the tradition had started. It wasn’t the same somehow without them. Of course when I visited with Miss