Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs. Part 3 of 3 - No Going Back

at the start of the 20th century one and a half million of us worked as servants astonishingly that's more than worked in industries or on the land my great-grandmother's were servants and coming from this background I want to find out about the reality of their lives country houses like these simply wouldn't have been able to function without a whole army of staff working away above and below stairs when I come to places like this my first instinct isn't to go through the grand formal entrance but to find the servants door and go in that way the story of service means a lot to me not just because it's about my family it's actually the story of all our families in this series I want to dispel the nostalgia we have around domestic service to reveal a darker more complicated world pieces means more fun looking women yeah you want to bring good-looking we were underdogs we weren't on the same level of spending and we are we act in our slave centuries of service have left behind a messy emotional legacy an obsession with class with its complex mix of deference and resentment it's been passed down the generations an obsession that makes us the better and worse who we are we've ignored it for so long but the history of service is at the heart of what it means to be British in the first two episodes we've seen that the ideal servant was a Victorian invention a way of ordering society into its proper place and ironically as a very high point of service a new generation of forthright servants directly attached this ideal in this film we witness the complete collapse of the old order leaving the master-servant relationship in turmoil and the very notion of service itself in crisis and of course our servants Hall is now a coelom seeking a hundred people fatigued well I think that's never a look of a server to fit it's the story of how the moment they have a choice servants leave service never to return [Music] it was from these large town houses bustling with servants but one of the most original and authentic servant voices emerged who told us straight and fearlessly what the world of service really meant one of the first lessons I learned in baton is that the really I was Disraeli said two societies rich and poor in 1922 a fifteen year old girl named Margaret Powell came here for home in Sussex to work as a kitchen maid with her first experience of living domestic service years later that experience would become the basis for her best-selling memoir belowstairs read by millions Margaret's memoirs told us a raw uncensored story of domestic service well when that great door crashed on me 1923 after I've gone into prisoner that was a result a knife and would never see the light of day again and then I went into that dungeon of a kitchen of that enormous like kitchen range and was shown the list of Pretty Maids duties anybody would think that it was for a week and when I discovered that while I was expected to do all that work in a day are nearly done rise at 5:30 6:00 on Sunday night the range clean the flues punish the range polish the steel fender and all the farms mush up and do all the path on the door clean all those great stone step do all the boots and shoes lay the servants papers wait on them take your own out in the kitchen not allowed to eat with the servants when you're a kid roommates and so on and so on our Father has a dark angers of return and I couldn't stand it and this was that dreary little basement and over here was that kitchen and all that I ever saw of life was people's leaves as they walked by there and then at night when the day's work was done and mighty late it was sometimes I would drag myself and all those 132 stairs to they bear it on the top the thing that stands out for me when reading her book is not just the grim description of her daily duties but her fervent deeply felt reaction to that vast gulf that separated her from her employers a seemingly unbridgeable gulf of status and class we always called them them then was the enemy them overworked us and them underpaid us and to them servants were a race apart unnecessary evil what lay behind margaret's no holds barred tail was the great secret but most servants have had enough of the appalling conditions bad treatment and low pay the injustice is of the world of service simply made no sense anymore in the 20th century to the moment they could leave they did and the first time of low to the old order was of course the first world war at the outbreak of war the aristocracy and landed gentry including the telethons for profit hall owned 4/5 of the land in Britain and still controlled much of political life frost Worth was used as a status symbol and a playground by Charles and Constance telethons who led a privileged life indulging their passions for lavish dinner parties and balls summer yacht tours around Scotland and importantly for Charles shooting this social world was all made possible through the work of 15 indoor servants and 89 estate workers this concealed or separates the world of the telethons from the world of their servants both worlds are about to change at the start of the war all eligible men were encouraged to enlist country life magazine called on its rich readers to do their patriotic duty and release their men servants you have you a butler groom chauffeur gardener or gamekeeper serving you who at this moment should be serving your king and country have you a man digging your garden who should be digging trenches have your man preserving your game who should be helping preserve your country would you sacrifice your personal convenience for your country's need ask your men to enlist today and of course Charles telecine too old to enlist himself allowed his men to go this is the butler's pantry his mr. Marshalls country one day at the beginning of the war a young servant called James Hunt's would have come in here to hand in his notice as he was going off to the trenches the photo of who we think is James here he was a footman and his mr. Marshall in the center over the next three years all the healthy men left for the war including mr. Marshall telephone may have lost most of his men servants but he was not about to forego service other solutions had to be found this picture is just one of a whole collection of photos taken by one of the few men servants deemed not fit to serve valise and amateur photographer Alf Edwards it was during the war that else started courting his future wife Caroline then brought with cook he was the valet she was the new cook but their pals would necessarily cross though how did they get together we're standing in the room where some of it happened in the kitchen Alf had a established routine of bringing his prints into this kitchen and hanging them up they'd all be hanging along here presumably on some sort of washing line or whatever they had here to dry but of course with Caroline being in the kitchen and him wandering in and out and they got talking where is this taken we're not sure we think it was taken them somewhere on the estate on a Sunday afternoon when they were courting we presume the dress a beautiful red color was the real colour during their courtship here they spend a lot of time photographing each other look at the tint on that fantastic he didn't go and fight yes or no Alf them had consumption we now call it tuberculosis and he was exempted from war service because of this big impact on on Alf was the huge number of jobs he had to do during the war when he was in progressively worse and worse health alfe's been hired as a valid but like for so many servants during the war his duties multipliers he now chauffeured and ran the gunroom Alf was good with guns he's seen here loading Fort Ellison Charles telecine was determined to maintain service standards at home on his estate and in his game keeping maintaining the large team of beaters and kickers needed for shooting was extremely difficult during the war as revealed in the game book preserved in bronze with archives game tapings pretty highly skilled activity it was those highly skilled and very prestigious the gamekeepers are always among some highest-paid of the estate workforce actually and and in fact in the estate accounts we always see there's always a whole separate page or it's almost like a separate department in that I'll just show you what sort of the or due to that expertise would you say well firstly as we know several of the gamekeepers go off to war and in fact two of them are recommended of course of being as being stacked hearty fellows and good shots so he come this is battered looking book is their record of all the game they shot in right it's a game book which they kept detailed records of right from the 1860s here's example in 1913 this is a sort of typical years of em which is that they're shooting the tally here is 4999 seven thirds five thousand seven yes in the season running from September to January that's right and but we may include other things such as a partridge in the hares and so on it's just under 8,000 items game although they carry on shooting into the First World War in 1916 half the number of pheasants and then they're half the total game what happens in the following years in 1918 824 so by brother Sanders a very little older men and young boys filled gamekeeper roles but above all female servants in country houses across Britain took on extra duties as explained by telecine himself a wonderful article the livestock journal in 1916 which alludes to have a war with hitting his entire estate workforce like all other estate only the labor problem through the war has presented itself in a cute form at Bosworth he's Asian didn't officer in the army his head garden is just called up three estate clerks have gone the man in charge of the poultry is about to be sued by a woman because the military claimed him and the squire told us he had not a chauffeur left so the poultry farm is being managed by a woman this is just a photograph of the lady and then had to take on her husband's role looking after the poultry and you can see that it was pretty expensive and it wasn't just any old poultry they were shown poultry I mean this is just the most wonderful prize-winning cockerel so it was a serious business actually again she'd have been handling money and dealing with commercial orders and all that kind of thing and feeding the chickens not fit not just feeding the chickens it sounds like that now it's a serious business and we no no no yes he was missus put yeah and then after the war she stepped back yes it was a temporary great see I think the genie was out the bottle there you know once many women were happy to go back to doing what they've done before and it's about the fact that was a return to normalcy in return to normal life civil war but the law them words you can no longer argue that they couldn't do it missus foots experience of stepping into a man's role was replicated all over Britain as the government actively encouraged women to do your bit replace a man for the front technical mechanical and even hard labor jobs were suddenly opened up to women and the most dangerous one of all with me mission this is the Woollett Arsenal happiest Heights during the First World War it was Britain's biggest munitions factory a vast complex over 30,000 women would walk through those gates every day to start a 12-hour shift the 30 and dangerous work 1/3 of these women were recruited from domestic service they were often given the most difficult jobs of bomb-making and chemical processing because they were considered clean efficient and most importantly trustworthy these ex servants were attracted to the dangerous work through higher pay and a sense of camaraderie [Music] war work offered women in a vast range of professions regulated working hours and conditions and access to subsidized childcare they join unions in their thousands female union membership during the war rose by 160 percent after the Armistice heroic men servants returning from the trenches were promised jobs in a land fit for Heroes women on the other hand were expected to step back to their traditional roles above all into domestic service Julia volley an ardent political activist based in Birmingham had spent the war successfully unionizing women in factories and workshops now that women were being encouraged to go back into service she set out to empower and galvanize servants to last a street close to the city centre was the place to start this is where number one not safe streets we disturb and it's important because it's a place where a charismatic suffragette and labor activist called Julia Varley started to organize the city maze in Birmingham one of her challenges was that there was very few places for working women to meet so she had a great idea she set up a club for servants right here some newspapers called it the servants paradise it became really a headquarters for a service Union Julia Varley conceived of her club as the welcoming meeting place for servants of all ranks from lowly scullery maids to cook complete with chintz curtains and a grand piano pre-war attempts at organizing a servants union had come to nothing but now these looked more hopeful women have come together from all over the country they've moved into initial centers they've left their hometowns they've perhaps lived in hostels together and the sort of you know that that formed bonds and friendship so Julia Varley along with other women trade unionists are aware that if they don't do something women are going to disappear back into this hidden world of employment that includes domestic service if women are going to go back into that job and I think it's important that she's not saying don't go back into that job she's she's certainly saying if you do it then we need to raise the profile we need to raise the status and we need to look at terms and conditions for form a domestic servant Julia Valley ensured the servants set out their own terms in her servants charter laying out their hours and the most basic work conditions such as the need for proper food a very fact that that has to be stated when we might all think that employee employers are bound to look after their their staff but this is in the months after the first of all and this is put down in writing to try to ensure that servants got could a plain food you know it says an awful lot too much to ask you that exactly they were not only likely the Hyatt of relatives either name by arrangement with the mistresses the girls are allowed to choose the name by which they wish to be called cultural kitchen with an easy-chair or other protein for rest yes and when and it also goes on to say a comfortable bedroom with separate bed where separate bedroom is not possible in other words they shouldn't be sharing a bed with another servant in here it says sheets to be changed at least every three weeks pillowcase and bath can't be changed at least every fortnight clean face towel every week and most importantly it says use of bathroom once a week hardly revolutionary demands things that includes me this is about these women just want you to be treated with dignity yes with respect yes what happens in the end does she succeed in the long run knows julia valley herself says after a couple of years it petered out and the reason that she herself sites about is snobbery she said you wouldn't believe the class distinctions there were among servants the cook wouldn't make for the housemaid and all that sort of thing she blames them she's blaming a servant for a dynamic of her club not working but perhaps it was easier for her to blame the servants to accept that this project and that she invested time and union resources into wasn't working Julia Varley may have blamed the servant snobbery but her timing could not have been worse at the start of 1921 unemployment doubled from one to nearly two million in the face of a disastrous economic slump following the first world war what many female servants did share however was outraged at the situation with unemployment insurance unemployment benefit had been introduced but shockingly servants weren't entitled to it because it was assumed that they could always find work and practice that meant that women who had a range of jobs during the war now found themselves forced into service one newspaper reported it like this Southampton times women still have not brought themselves to realize that factory work with the money paid to it during the war will not be possible again women who left domestic service to enter the factory are now required to return to the pots and pans [Music] but Wars effects on the service economy was clear there are now 200,000 fewer servants when women refuse service jobs and attempted to claim the doll the outraged middle classes called on their politicians to fight their cause for them this place amazing that's incredible some walk let's look here at the handsaw even quite surprising to me that servants make it into parliamentary debates well they were very big in people's lives and the lack of servants was very big in people's lives and here we have him captain Terrill that his captain told captain Terrill is the Conservative member of parliament for Henley and Henley was very much as Henley is today well the control up to Captain Terrill M is obviously bothered because his constituents can't get domestic servants or can't get domestic servants for the wages that they're prepared to pay he asked the Minister of Labour whether he will institute an inquiry into the abuse of the unemployment pay by women and girls who accustomed to domestic service now refused to re-enter it so very cleverly what captain Terrill is is doing he's not saying that my constituents can't get domestic servants which is what he means he's saying that women are abusing the dole by going on to the dole and taking money from the state rather than going out into gainful employment in brackets working for my constituents really blaming the dole for the servant shortage exactly so you you have the breaking off of the simplicity's of the class system did the end the ending of the days when there was a certain class and women of a certain class would become servants and women of another class would have alerts and they the classes were supposed to know what they were there for and are not supposed that they could carry on working in munitions factories for instance they had been I obey well war with with higher pay it's the breaking up of the certainties of people's social status and position at this point the Labour Party begin to get involved and they begin to chime in on the other side of the argument mr. W Thorne a Labour MP is doing what and peace and journalists love to do he's bringing a real-life case that they has of Commons a heart-wrenching case to the House of Commons but miss Elmore he says is the eldest of ten children having nine brothers and one sister all living at home five being under 14 years of age and still going to school the youngest not being two years old she was one of the chief supporters of the hustle when working at the rubber works that's probably after the or during the first world war and in consequence miss ball states that she was not used to domestic service and as she was one of the chief supporters of the household she could not see her way clear to accept the position of a domestic servant and they're going to take the dole away from her and her whole family rely on her this is one of those lovely human stories that can be so much more effective in politics than dry our key yes and a girl like this is 17 he says there yes it's expected to take a domestic service job wherever that may be girl right as a fact she hasn't been trained to do it yet and regardless of whether to the convenience of her mistress rather than the all all her younger brother sister [Music] with issues around servants and the dolls so publicly raised in Parliament certain newspapers waded in on behalf of the employers the Daily Mail picks up the story they run a campaign over two or more weeks called scandals of the dull paying women to be idle girls who ought to be in service and they employ a special correspondent to investigate the problem the most flagrant scandal connected with the doll is that of the thousands upon thousands of women who are drawing it when they look to be the domestic service this is a scandal which is capable and know kind of valid excuse he calls upon the government to do one perfectly obvious thing make it illegal for women to draw the doll when they are capable of domestic service so it goes on well the campaign's gathering pace and a week later there are lots of letters from correspondence here's one to the editor of The Daily Mail sir for four months I have been trying in vain to get a servant I applied to the Labour Bureau they told me they had no servants of any sort or kind there were ten women forming a queue in the office passage and up the stairs and in the street obviously as a domestic servant class I asked the clerk what they were doing thinking they had come to try and get employment but was told they were women waiting to receive a doll and swinging from barns all this public debate resulted in a Committee of Inquiry staffed with women from all sides of the political spectrum including Julia Varley but no actual servants the committee came up with some quite thoughtful recommendations better training better conditions improving status but in the end its report Rochelle's as with so many problems the government doesn't want to deal with the inquiries report was kicked into the long grass for no one in Parliament seem to have the answer to the underlying question what to do when thousands of young women refused to go into service now the battleground shifted to an unlikely issue the maids hair cap and uniform nothing typifies more the indignity of service than old fashioned uniforms and the cap itself became a hated symbol of deference the mistresses now took it on themselves to persuade young women back through a fashion charm offensive this is one of the new women's magazines from the 1930s the needlewoman a magazine of exclusive fashions in dress and in the home kind of thing that would have been read by a lot of mistresses and it's got some great hints for the mistress as to how to keep your maid happy and one way they should do it is by improving on that uniform the cap mr. Sears you have difficulty in persuading their maid to wear the fifthly starched cap and apron should try the effect of a dainty apron and cap similar to the one in the picture we caption and Lisa doesn't this apron look smart could you saw us here the anxiety in the voice there she doesn't look desperately happy about it that's great what I love this to make your maid look her best maid uniforms are very different nowadays from the stiff cumbersome designs worn before the war the wise mistress finds it pays to make her maid take a pride in her dress many smart make mistresses in Mayfair find that the maid who resents uniform will be quite happy when wearing a picturesque outfit in color which protects you a picture of amazed in the caption any maid would feel happy with a dainty open like the one above I think if you read between the lines here there's a real sense of anxiety insecurity on the part of the mistresses they're not sure how to deal with this new breed of maid more flighty more you know they've got their own ideas about how they want to look and how they want to be how they want to live their lives but they're making an effort they're going for it they're trying to say if we meet them halfway nicer uniforms they'll be happy but it's a bit of a vain hope I think but there was one mistress who came up with a truly radical idea which offered servants much more than simply a prettier apron society hostess lady Malcolm organized an annual servants ball where servants and employers could meet on equal terms she called it her Cinderella doll and in 1928 the ball took place in the warm cliff rooms of what used to be called the Grand Central Hotel in London tickets are on sale to all and it was difficult to tell amongst the thousand dancers who was a servant and who an employer lady Malcolm was rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of Edward the seventh and his mistress beauty and international actress Lily Langtry only some one of Lady Malcolm's unorthodox social standing would dare such a thing what are you lady muscles do this she had a very odd childhood her mother touring doing her stage appearances cavorting with her boyfriends left her alone at a time when if she'd been seen with her daughter tongues would have wag so the little girl is taken out by servants and makes friends with servant she sees that they are not just human beings but in many ways nicer human beings than the grand folk fourth with whom she is expected to spend her time and it's a bulwark it was fairly formal obviously judging from the descriptions in the press it started off with a procession led by lady Malcolm and have they would come in and they wouldn't tell me I'm sighs I know nothing I mean they're pretty good like that Kazuma been having hand receiving the press all over Britain delighted in covering the ball as did the American Delaware Morning Star and love this headline the lady Markham defied society dull for the butler while the conservative London dodges sat back and sidled but had two tickets the dodgers gassed in astonishment as the erstwhile dignified british stefan chatted gayly with lady malcolm while he escorted her across the spacious floor with the casual air of a young law but they were still more astounded when she stepped into his arms and went dancing across the floor the chef forgot the giggling housemaid by his side this was indeed an innovation even lady malcolm whose impregnable facial position permitted her many privileges had never dared such an act before sex lady malcolm looking of course away from the butler and indeed he does look at all the bottle nose though buffa lady i think she's either holding an apple she's turning away from his very very wine alcoholic breath but of course that's one of the things you never hear about and what was their Exel being held in the embrace of a man who was serving you your drinks for the rest of the year could you ever quite go back the question is raised here I think could you ever go back to the old relationship once you had gone through that because that old relationship depends on that different it depends on the difference in depends also on physical distance by which I don't mean that he wasn't a few feet from you and of course when he was pouring wine at dinner he was leaning over your shoulder but nonetheless they weren't actually touching whereas once you've been in his arms things were never going to be the same again in her own way I think dating Malcolm achieved one of the great sort of blows against the castle but while some mistresses were trying to charm their servants with balls and flower aprons a new model of middle-class service was emerging change came from a surprising quarter not from the country house set but from those eager to move out of crowded city housing [Music] tired of these surroundings been cooked up in this London flat worn with either bear knows well then let's go out into the country the country where the orphanage houses are fairly Oh charming Valley Oaks that's where the Goodman's live yeah he's always doing the Marigold - it's nothing I just will kill down that's awesome - you'll get immortalized by John Betjeman as Metroland new suburban developments were springing up all over the country north on Greenland outside the city centers astonishingly the number of privately owned houses quadrupled between the walls designed for a lower middle class of teachers and bank clerks the most popular housing type of all was the semi-detached home this is a classic 1930s house the families that moved out to these suburbs were full of hope and optimism they were building a new way of life and you can see it in the sunrise motive over there which was everywhere at the time what's really interesting is that this new way of life required a different kind of servants it's hard to imagine that these small houses had room or role for servants lots of families still wanted the the status and the labor of having some kind of servant and so they compromised by having a day 7 somebody that you know was kind of like a cleaner but but we don't really have cleaners at this point the day servants would still have look very like traditional servant or a uniform they might well have worn the uniform they might well have come in pretty early so they might cut has come in at about 7 o'clock in the morning and again left fairly late so they still have the long hours the suburbs were not a servant free zone so I think for a lot of families they really wanted to have the visible domestic worker the daily servant in their house so that they could show to everyone you know we've arrived we really are middle-class so they might get the maid working you know hoovering or serving up dinner in the front room and have the bay window curtain open and the lights on so that everyone can look in and see what they've got long but how was the already fractious bond between servants and their employers going to play out in these small houses well it causes immense problem for the relationship between employers and Daley's because they're thrown right close together you know they no longer have the clear sense of separate spaces but you can kind of still see the the way in which that is built into a house like this it's the fact that it has the side entrance so that you can still have tradesmen and and dailies coming in around the side is very important that's still a kind of an attempt to to delineate the status of the different people coming in and out of that's an important part of doing semi-detached that's is that you could have a side entrance yeah yeah let's upstairs elders it's more front door side door exactly yeah this kitchen is modern because it's full of labor-saving devices that cooker with gas in the fridge they also passed the house it's integrated there's a kind of proximity the rest of the house that's right kitchens were being pulled in to family life they I wouldn't say they get the kind of the heart of the home which they become after World War two but nonetheless this might be a family room you might have the family breakfasting in here all together but we also need to remember that there were real limits to that so although it's a bright cheerful sunny room and it's kind of just you know a step away from the other rooms in the house this was also the servants domain and if you just look out here she would have been expected to you this little outside toilet it's really clear that servants were not being invited to use it in Dorset little morsels yeah so just have a look at this what we've got here this is some servant grade toilet paper you see strong toilet tissue so you've got the soft quilted toilet paper upstairs and here you've got what I call the tracing paper version recess but what is going on here with these two bathrooms what was the story I think what we see is a kind of persistent disgust at having to share intimate spaces with servants who are still imagined to be they were still different kinds of people you didn't want the servant in your in your bathroom the physical other nurse of the servant you know the disgust at their bodies so that sense of disgust is really played out in these different products that you know the servants get carbolic soap and the family gets scented creamy lather offenses just like the suburban houses University of household appliances were designed with servants in mind if you look here you know this is this is a this is a great example of this it's the Daily Mail ideal labor-saving home book and it's full it absolutely packed with adverts and commentary which is basically saying how do we solve the servant problem here you've got all these happy looking servants using these devices and you know they're trying to say the solution to your disgruntled servants is in getting your carpet sweeper the sweeper vac smiling servant no cap that's really much less decorative fashionable hair that's right gadgets were being sold as servant pacifiers but in reality the roles of servant and middle class health wife were becoming increasingly blur with new technologies significantly reducing the hours and physical challenge of housework who was actually doing the work suburban housewives were taking on tasks like cooking but one duty remained beyond the pale to the point of absurdity this is a wonderful example of how in some ways things haven't changed when I went to receive at all they receive adore it being advertised here as the greatest household labor-saving device khureshi toaster the receiver door is the silent servant of the health of giving orders and receiving powerful now when we think of what the greatest labor-saving device of the 20th century is we might say actually vacuum trailer yet one of those but here this is a device which enables you to not answer your own front door so it's a little hatch that goes out of the front and you know the tradesman delivering some meat puts their parcel in it and you open it and take it out on inside you don't need to have an interruption so you know we don't think of answering the door was particularly hard work but it was still a really fraud thing do you answer the door yourself if you're not observant is it okay for that for the mistress of the house to do that and what that kind of thing have been installed in a house like this yes this is exactly who that who they're aiming at it's exactly they're the middle class house where there's not enough money for the old staff and those higher up the social ladder who did still have enough money were desperately clinging on to their living staff [Music] this was the site of Clayton Lodge where the tinnie family lived Emily to me her husband dr. Philip Tony their kids and up to six servants that was including a cook and a butler and a gardener had very nice life up here they had three acres and orchards eight bedrooms house sobbing bulldoze now and it's been replaced by period houses mock period houses I product me but what remains is an amazing record of the tinny's troubles of finding and keeping good servants in the 1930s Spencer I've come to the National Museums of Liverpool to see the tinnies photo album and letters that have been carefully preserved by the family big box there are five children so a six altogether and the youngest one haven't been born yet because he's not on the end of the line this is Elspeth this is Ernest Bertha Helen and Alexi so this is Ernest who went away to eaten most of the letters are directed to him and his father writes to him literally every week they're telling everything that goes on in the house you know what the cats doing so what the servers are doing so let's have a look this one mummy is getting overworked with no cook and stupid girl but preferred it to dishonest and influenced older women in the kitchen they talk constantly of how difficult it is to recruit servants and to retain them as well the good ones anyway the new maid is useless she knows nothing and does less always wanted to go home or go to dances and stay away for the night now here you can see what's happening is a problem here as problems are mounting in the late authority to assert servants generally an impossible Irish maid turned up today with two sisters not applying to interview money instead of the only girl she would employ in length yes one year in England wanted seventeen and six a week and two evenings our fee means till 11:30 p.m. this is what these are hair demands yeah plus latchkey it seems you're better little the cottage and offer the manor house Oh it includes sarcastically today well what else would she like community or individuals instead of the other way around the working-class so-called can have it all their own way these days so we have no maid and have to start our own fires and do the cooking and washing up it must have been such a change for a family like that Lee yeah that he had been used to a bit of a comedown in a Socialcam because she was somebody who wouldn't even have answered her own front door in 1910 he when she first got married and here she is having to run the house and look after the kitchen and do the jobs of the maids and so on so she's really doing those noisy jobs really have to pitch in Ben and that's called Engel know definitely through and what did what did her husband listen you get the sense that he's not thrilled about it but it's one of those unfortunate facts of life is to just do these things sometimes they're powerless against the trend of history which is fewer and fewer servants around and this is a good example here from a letter from 1937 which talks about the kinds of things people are considering as an alternative no signs of a cook and most people are in the same place the aerodrome of factories speak which is now John Lennon Airport will absorb still more girls the girls are going to work girls go to work in new industry these new industries are absorbing people from different directions including urban in a big way we badly want an importation of Russians or Spaniards to act as domestics the Irish cannot be counted reliable and the English won't work the English won't work so that's an interest in 2007 yes they are obviously looking abroad for servants at this point I have not got amazed yet nearly all the ladies I know have got Austrian German or Swiss maid but I have not quite brought myself to that yet even though there was a demand for Austrian and German maids it wasn't that easy for them to get into Britain in the build-up to war Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler flooded into the country in order to control the flood the British government started issuing new visas including a domestic service Eva which restricted the holder to working of a living servant only 20,000 refugees came over on these domestic service visas double the number that were saved through the celebrated Kindertransport they were mostly young middle-class Viennese girls themselves from servant keeping families uh turley unprepared for domestic labor Edith RG made it over from Vienna in September 1938 and had nine jobs in the space of only a year and a half did you change jobs so many times because you didn't like the work why couldn't you settle into one when I hated every job Anderson want to be a domestic servant and what was so bad about it for you relieved in most cases I wasn't either psychologically or physically really suitable for that kind of psychologically because the whole idea of being a servant and being treated as either ignored or you know sevens just didn't and they demand tune being somehow they were sort of some sub human beings and I felt had already knotted Austria I had been treated or some human being and I felt that this was a continuation of it and left me when I arrived in England is that an official photograph for thee that must have been yes yes these are my parents you know my mother died when I was four years old this is my father me when I was I don't know three or four years I don't know how weren't principal yes oh very close to him yes a yes as I think he really really know me this is my step mama and me I tried desperately and I had found her somebody who would employ her but the home was here you know she was 2 years too old she was 57 and then jewel tiaras I never saw her again I just lived with that guilt can't imagine for the rest of my life Edith's stepmother was deported to Poland and never returned when the war ended Edith her father and brother were reunited [Music] where the wall may temporarily have pulled more women into servant roles its aftermath inflicted lasting damage to the world of service many big houses like broads worth faced crisis with soaring taxation there were to be no more shooting parties or hunt balls and the living servants that remained down from 15 in the last war to just three spoke out with a new openness and directness so this year when you worked here yeah in the night woman's it's after the Second World War oh my goodness me so how old were you here about 1890 about nineteen come on I'm looking for us yeah you were a very good looking is that your own is that your dress yep it was blue so didn't wear uniform that was me you only from it and a white apron a big one on the morning and a small one but after supply then myself we didn't have cap and no and that wasn't gone out then on yeah nothing throwout finished they never asked you to wear one I wouldn't have done it wouldn't you know why not well oh well the good of mongers it was let's just do here what was your job a parlor maid and in austere dual the breakfasts right it was to help Esther upstairs with a sitting will clean the blossom and then go down to the dining room see see that their breakfast would are like here and then upstairs helped to make the beds back downstairs cleaned to clear the dining room washed up clean the silver get ready for lunch this is all before lunch yep yeah speak out go pick out it really was hard work what do you think you were you and Emily and Esther you were helping them to maintain a lifestyle that was really on the way out yeah well I mean the earth dev got about 10 staff there was left Rick left with three of us but expection same expecting the same standard and I mean when they had guests muggins the adaptive the donkey work and it was hard work we were underdogs we weren't on the same level to spent and we got to know our place ask at your local Ministry of Labour office or a hospital details of how that Sheila didn't accept being an underdog after an argument she left broad swath later getting a job as an auxilary nurse in the new National Health Service first you must learn nursing isn't difficult while you're learning you're paid the job is interesting and there's plenty of companionship one day off a week and four weeks paid holiday a year oh it was a different life altogether now how would you explain that you see you are more freedom I mean when you're in service you can't find you don't get out he's only on your half day but there and dough may shift at the hospital and I couldn't go out I could even go to a cinema which was unusual for me and how does the money to him Oh better a lot better more money more freedom yes Sheila met her husband Bob while he was working in a children's home and after you left did you keep in touch with people here after McCain worms and my husband and me to talk to Emily Oh mrs. Grand allt must've heard our voices and she came in oh she luscious is nice to see you again and she said it was this isn't my husband and he said would you like a job here so he says what's it worth so she says four pound a week which I shouldn't introduce she wanted him to be in the book la 4 pound a week in those two rooms you know where the right at the end when when it got outside Lisbon said no ways it would I work in a place like that this is four pound a week and tour scruffy ruins it there's no way excuse me because it almost sums up the end of formal service that that that was end of an arrow would had this system for hundred years or so again if there's people like you and your husband weren't going to do this work anymore you know [Music] Sheila was just one of thousands of women who seized with both hands any chance to leave service flocking into jobs in offices shops and the NHS service was no longer the largest category of female employment tightest and Clark's were instead now only one percent of households still employed a live-in servant the servant class as we knew it had truly disappeared so this was indeed the end of grand-scale country house living since the end of the war a thousand historic estates have been demolished diminished or turned into flats servants quarters were usually the first to be converted to other use either storage or the tea room the more entrepreneurial owners either on their own or with organizations like the National Trust and English Heritage cleverly located themselves as part of the heritage industry in survival of these pounds is really important they're a vital part of our heritage industry and thousands of people visit them every year the hell did give us a window into the world of service really important one but for me it's a window that partially open half-open and the view we get through it it's pretty rose-colored line often the fantasy of service presented in these houses is tinged with a sentimental nostalgia old-fashioned cooking implements retro household wares and beautifully recreated foodstuffs from cheese's to game are all carefully arranged in the pristinely clean elegantly painted servants quarters visitors delight in this visual feast but what can't be mocked up is the reality and complexity of the servants lives the memories of most to experience service were anything but rose-tinted margaret pals memoirs were published in 1968 and her candid view of life below stairs chimed with the spirit of the 60s when class hierarchies were be in question like never before her publisher sent her on a book tour the first morning she came down to me she said cook have you ever worked for a lady with a title before a certain one no I haven't so she said well suppose you know how to address her trusted you I suppose I say lady Goodman's oh no you don't you said when you're talking to me you say milady and when you are talking of me to the other servants you say her ladyship we journey you to say that okay up there the public interest in what Margaret represented turn tones are something of a celebrity BBC Center to interview the kind of people she might earlier work for questioning them about how their lives have changed my house did you see my 8th Marquess has happened I'm feeling very glad to do that welcome do you entertain at me do you have own house passes now as they did in the old days not quite on the scale we reckon to have six or eight people seven and then you'd be I love I love to have I love the idea of having 20 people say but it's just if my wife says there was there's a little local difficulties about sort of bed making and washing up we find is like embarrassing that is just occasionally some elderly friends well survived with a chaser and of course our servants Hall is now at even seating a hundred people fatigue another things know we're a little safer to sit so what do you think the role is now then ever Lord in the twentieth century I mean have they got a role even at all I never see myself as having a low less enhance declare I have a load of the annular bacteria that's the important thing in my failing this gorgeous house today the rich still have staff to cater to their every need and the middle classes still employ nannies are no pairs to watch over the children and cleaners to clean the toilets and scrub the steps they may no longer be called servants and most now come from abroad from places like Poland or the Philippines their relationship with their employers doesn't have the same anxieties and mutual dependence that once lay at the heart of the master-servant bond but they are still largely poor underappreciated and invisible performing the repetitive often thankless yet essential tasks of domestic service Margaret Powell was able to write about servants because she was able to leave it and get an education my great grandmothers were servants but they never had that chance and I wonder what they would have thought over Britain without its traditions of living service a Britain that no longer has what was once called a servant class and a country where their great-granddaughter could choose to go to university earn a doctorate and spend her life wielding a pen instead of a broom [Music]

Channel: anarchi.st

Views: 1,383,335

Rating: 4.8215847 out of 5

Keywords: feminism, servants, Margaret Powell, domestic labour, class struggle, unions, anarchism

Id: kbAsugV-jF8

Length: 58min 49sec (3529 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 24 2017