Up and Down Stairs Read Online Free Page B
Author: Jeremy Musson
employer, who was young enough to be his grandson. 5
The size of post-war staffs generally depended on the age and income of the employer. The older generations often tried to stick to the way of life they had been brought up to, but were usually forced to reduce staff numbers over the decades in the face of higher taxes, inflation, and a wholly modern desire for increased privacy. 6 By the 1970s, the advantages of new technologies, which had promised so much in the interwar years whilst not actually delivering very much, had begun to make a noticeable difference. This was especially true of central heating and modern vacuum cleaners. By the 1980s and 1990s, the younger generation of country-house owners were accustomed to doing much more of their own day-to-day cooking.
Where staff were still employed, they were also expected to be adaptable and flexible. This meant that while some traditional titles survived, individuals often took on much wider duties than had everbeen demanded of them before. Mr Lane at Leigh Manor found himself doing the job of butler, footman, houseboy and gardener all rolled into one. As David Stacey points out, ‘but for the fact he couldn’t drive he would have become the chauffeur as well.’ 7
By the end of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, there is such diversity in domestic service and it has been so little researched that it is impossible to discuss entirely representative patterns of staffing. Equally, although the word servant is no longer used, most country-house owners continue to employ some staff to make living in their houses feasible. Very often, without staff it is impossible to make opening their houses and gardens to the public viable and profitable. A by-product of this has been an increase in the colleagueship and camaraderie among staff that had so declined in country houses in the immediate post-war years. 8
Certain themes seem to be representative, so this chapter will examine a sequence of individual stories, based on interviews, to illustrate some of those key themes; such as the continuance of practical support, the link between members of staff employed on a large estate, the prevalence of long service, long-standing associations with the estate, and personal loyalty. Many domestic and estate staff on the point of retirement today began working in the late 1950s and 1960s, often having just left school at the age of fifteen. They can remember working alongside senior staff who had been trained in the 1920s and 1930s, in a world more intimately connected with the late Victorian and Edwardian apogee than might seem apparent.
First, it is important to understand the dramatic impact of the Second World War. Between 1939 and 1945 most major country houses were turned over to wartime uses, whether for military occupation, to provide a home to evacuated schoolchildren, or to house government departments relocated far from the hazards of the Blitz. As for their staff, young men in domestic service often went into the armed forces while women either joined the auxiliaries, or helped the war effort by working in munitions factories, much as they had in the First World War. 9
At the end of the war things were never going to ‘return to normal’ (not least because change had first begun in the 1920s). Theeconomic and physical strains of worldwide conflict were followed by the Labour landslide victory of the 1945 election, leading to a massive increase in taxation, especially death duties. All of this seemed to herald a new age in which the communities of the old country-house world could hardly expect to return to pre-war practices.
Many country houses simply did not revert to private domestic occupation. A sad number of important historic buildings were abandoned, sold off and ultimately demolished. These losses to our culture were catalogued by the Victoria and Albert Museum’s 1973 exhibition,
The Destruction of the
The size of post-war staffs generally depended on the age and income of the employer. The older generations often tried to stick to the way of life they had been brought up to, but were usually forced to reduce staff numbers over the decades in the face of higher taxes, inflation, and a wholly modern desire for increased privacy. 6 By the 1970s, the advantages of new technologies, which had promised so much in the interwar years whilst not actually delivering very much, had begun to make a noticeable difference. This was especially true of central heating and modern vacuum cleaners. By the 1980s and 1990s, the younger generation of country-house owners were accustomed to doing much more of their own day-to-day cooking.
Where staff were still employed, they were also expected to be adaptable and flexible. This meant that while some traditional titles survived, individuals often took on much wider duties than had everbeen demanded of them before. Mr Lane at Leigh Manor found himself doing the job of butler, footman, houseboy and gardener all rolled into one. As David Stacey points out, ‘but for the fact he couldn’t drive he would have become the chauffeur as well.’ 7
By the end of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, there is such diversity in domestic service and it has been so little researched that it is impossible to discuss entirely representative patterns of staffing. Equally, although the word servant is no longer used, most country-house owners continue to employ some staff to make living in their houses feasible. Very often, without staff it is impossible to make opening their houses and gardens to the public viable and profitable. A by-product of this has been an increase in the colleagueship and camaraderie among staff that had so declined in country houses in the immediate post-war years. 8
Certain themes seem to be representative, so this chapter will examine a sequence of individual stories, based on interviews, to illustrate some of those key themes; such as the continuance of practical support, the link between members of staff employed on a large estate, the prevalence of long service, long-standing associations with the estate, and personal loyalty. Many domestic and estate staff on the point of retirement today began working in the late 1950s and 1960s, often having just left school at the age of fifteen. They can remember working alongside senior staff who had been trained in the 1920s and 1930s, in a world more intimately connected with the late Victorian and Edwardian apogee than might seem apparent.
First, it is important to understand the dramatic impact of the Second World War. Between 1939 and 1945 most major country houses were turned over to wartime uses, whether for military occupation, to provide a home to evacuated schoolchildren, or to house government departments relocated far from the hazards of the Blitz. As for their staff, young men in domestic service often went into the armed forces while women either joined the auxiliaries, or helped the war effort by working in munitions factories, much as they had in the First World War. 9
At the end of the war things were never going to ‘return to normal’ (not least because change had first begun in the 1920s). Theeconomic and physical strains of worldwide conflict were followed by the Labour landslide victory of the 1945 election, leading to a massive increase in taxation, especially death duties. All of this seemed to herald a new age in which the communities of the old country-house world could hardly expect to return to pre-war practices.
Many country houses simply did not revert to private domestic occupation. A sad number of important historic buildings were abandoned, sold off and ultimately demolished. These losses to our culture were catalogued by the Victoria and Albert Museum’s 1973 exhibition,
The Destruction of the
Readers choose
Melissande
Gail Z. Martin
Linda Winstead Jones
The Rogue's Return
Bruce Chadwick
R.E. Blake
J.A. Huss
Laura Penny
Chris Bohjalian
Charlotte Vale Allen