Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid (14 page)

In the kitchen, Mrs Jones and Flo
didn’t bat an eyelid at the sight of a screaming scullery maid covered in
blood.

‘Oh, stop your fussing,
child,’ Mrs Jones tutted, shaking her head. ‘When you gonna learn to
pluck and gut them partridge? It’s yer job, you know.’

Scrubbing the blood off my hands at the
sink, I nodded miserably. I knew it was my job, but it didn’t make it any
easier.

Ever since we’d arrived at
Woodhall three months ago in July 1931, I’d quickly realized that the
boss’s time would be devoted to stalking, shooting and hunting down pheasants,
partridge, rabbits and hares. If it moved, he would shoot and eat it. Which meant that
somebody had to devote a lot of their time to plucking, skinning and gutting dead
animals. And who would that somebody be? Yes, you’ve guessed it. The scullery
maid, of course.

The game room, which led off from the
kitchen, was full to the brim with the rotting carcasses of dead animals that Mr Stocks
and his hunting cronies had killed. Hares, partridges and pheasants all hung from iron
hooks high up on the walls and pools of blood congealed on the floor. In the country
they liked to hang them for a good two weeks. Apparently, it improved the flavour. I
don’t know about that, but it certainly made them stink a whole lot more.

Between the dead game and the gardener,
whose smelly feet competed with the stench from the game room, the air around these
parts weren’t so fresh, after all.

Flo came up behind me at the sink.

‘I’ll do it,’
she said with a kind smile. She was an expert at plucking and gutting birds and did it
without a murmur. ‘You always know how to get round me, don’t
you?’

‘Thanks, Flo,’ I grinned
back. ‘You’re a real pal. What would I do without
you?’

‘I don’t
know,’ she said, shaking her head and laughing. ‘Find someone else,
like as not.’

Apart from the rotting stench of the game
room, Woodhall was quite the loveliest place I’d ever seen. A great
fifteen-bedroom listed Tudor home set in acres of stunning countryside. It was huge;
much bigger than the Cadogan Square house. Mr Stocks’s father, Major Michael
Stocks, had purchased it in 1895 and, as we’d bumped up the gravel drive in
the back of their country car, I could quite see why he must have fallen in love with it
on sight.

It was a hazy summer’s afternoon
when we arrived and, after the hustle and bustle of smoggy London, the sweet country air
was a tonic. Mr Thornton had met us off the train at Downham and soon we were whizzing
along the quiet country lanes. Mrs Jones stared resolutely ahead, clutching some of her
beloved copper pans to her bosom for dear life, but Flo and I soon had the windows wound
down and were gawping at the scenery as it unfolded outside.

The countryside was beyond beautiful.

Ancient mellow villages unchanged for
centuries passed by as if wrapped in a time warp. The verdant green hedgerows were
bursting with wild flowers and a rush of fresh country air laced with the aroma of wood
smoke
tingled in my nose. Every so often a gap in the hedgerow
revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a windswept creek or sweeping wild views of the
backwaters beyond.

Out of my bedroom window in London the only
scenery had been a jumble of chimney pots. Here, the Norfolk skies seemed to stretch on
forever. Fields of wheat and barley soon gave way to fertile fens, flanked by gently
swaying rushes.

‘This is Hilgay,’
announced Mr Thornton as we drove through a picture-postcard village.
‘It’s quiet, all right. Daresay you girls won’t be able to
get up to too much mischief here.’

Mrs Jones said nothing, just raised her
eyebrows half an inch and bristled. Flo and I exchanged wicked little grins.

If Constable himself had come along he
couldn’t have painted a prettier picture of a chocolate-box English village.
Ancient flint-and-stone workers’ cottages nestled in lush green gardens and in
the middle of it stood a sweet little church. The village of Hilgay is on the banks of
the River Wissey and fat creamy-coloured geese dozed in the sunshine. Before long a
duck, followed by a line of little ducklings, waddled up the village high street,
forcing Mr Thornton to slow to a halt outside the church. There wasn’t another
motor car in sight as he eased the car to a stop. Time seemed to have stood still,
village life unchanged for centuries. An old boy, chewing on a bit of straw and hanging
over a fence post, gazed curiously at the waiting car full of women.

Eventually he raised his cap.

‘Hold yew hard, bor,’ he
said with a nod to Mr Thornton, a gap-toothed grin on his face. ‘Them ducks a
crossin’.
That’ll learn yer to rush
about.’ He looked like he moved as slowly as the mother duck and her
ducklings, but then I guessed everybody moved slowly round these parts. There
wasn’t much to rush to.

Mr Thornton nodded towards the
graveyard.

‘Captain George William
Manby’s buried in that there graveyard,’ he said proudly.
‘He’s the one what invented the rocket device that was used to save
the crews of shipwrecked ships.’ He shook his head and chuckled to himself.
‘Tested it from the roof of that church tower, so he did. Must have scared the
birds half to death.’

A plaque in Woodhall’s
church graveyard to commemorate Captain Manby, previous occupant of Woodhall and
inventor of a rocket device used to save the crews of shipwrecked ships.

Flo and I giggled at the thought of a
rocket blasting over the tranquil fields. It must have been the most exciting thing that
had ever happened round these parts.

‘He used to live in Woodhall, he
did,’ continued Mr Thornton. ‘Except the boss is the lord of the
manor now, a course.’

And what a manor to be lord of! Soon the
ducklings had moved safely to the other side of the street and we were off again. In no
time at all we had crunched to a halt up the gravel drive. As we disembarked from the
car in a scrummage of tired, aching limbs and clanking pots, Flo and I had paused to
take in our new home.

‘Quite something, ain’t
it?’ I whistled, wide-eyed.

‘Very gracious,’ Flo
agreed.

The red brickwork of the house, mellowed
over time, looked as much a part of the landscape as the pheasants that rustled in the
hedgerows flanking the gardens. Great stag antlers had been attached either side of the
arched stone porch and countless Tudor chimneys soared into the sky. It was magnificent,
but a trifle imposing.

Then we saw a sight equal in its
magnificence.

Louis was hard at work, his white shirt
sleeves rolled up to reveal sun-kissed muscular arms as he polished Mr
Stocks’s Daimler outside the stable block. He lovingly buffed the
Daimler’s sleek bonnet with his strong brown hands and Flo and I watched him,
mesmerized.

What a sight for sore eyes.

When Louis spotted us, his face lit up with
a broad grin and he lifted his chauffeur’s cap an inch.

‘This is my younger brother,
George,’ he said, gesturing to the man beside him. ‘Welcome to
Woodhall.’

All traces of fatigue vanished as we spotted
the handsome brother and waved and giggled frantically. Turned out George worked for a
local farmer and he and his handsome brother, Louis, lived with their father on a big
farmhouse on Woodhall’s estate.

‘Nice to meet you,
George,’ I purred.

‘This way, girls,’ said
Mrs Jones firmly, hustling us inside via the back door.

‘I’ve never seen
anywhere as grand as this in all me life,’ I whispered breathlessly to Flo as
we made our way up the back stairs to our new shared bedroom in the attic. The
servants’ rooms didn’t quite compete with the grandeur of the rest
of the estate. Our bedroom was dusty, hot and contained just two small single beds.

‘This side of the house is
strictly for female servants,’ Mrs Jones said, fixing her beady eyes on us.
‘The other side is for male servants. There is no access to that side of the
house from here, just in case you get any ideas. Now freshen up and then get yerselves
down in the kitchen,’ she ordered.

Interestingly enough, I only recently
discovered that Mrs Jones told us a little fib. There
is
access, by means of a
small secret doorway, leading to the male servants’ quarters. I suppose you
can’t blame her for not showing it to us!

Once inside, we plonked our small cases on
the lino floor and I flung open the window to let in some fresh air. ‘The
view’s not bad, mind,’ I commented when I leant out of the attic
window and realized I could still see Louis, his breeches stretched tight over his
magnificent bottom, as he bent over to polish the tyres.

Flo’s face lit up like a sunbeam
as she poked her nose out of the window next to me.

‘Yep,’ she giggled.
‘Reckon we’re gonna like it here, all right.’

I noted with interest that leading out of
our window was a small ladder, which served as a fire escape.
‘Hmmm,’ I murmured half to myself. ‘That may come in
handy!’

Unfortunately, grand it may have been, but
when it came to washing facilities, Woodhall was much more basic than Cadogan Square.
Flo and I each had a chamber pot under our beds to do our bodily functions in and, as
for a bathroom, forget it. A tiny hip bath stood in the corner of the room.

Tired and hot from our long journey, we
decided to have our weekly bath and wash the grime of London off. Filling up our hip
bath with water from a housemaid’s cupboard on the landing, we filled it to
the top. It took an age using an old enamel jug, but eventually we had it done.

‘You go first,’ said
Flo. I’d never been naked in front of anyone before, apart from my family, and
suddenly I was overcome with a rush of shyness. I had boobs now and hair in places I
never used to.

Peeling off my sweat-soaked dress and
knickers, I felt very exposed.

‘It’s all right, I
won’t peek,’ chuckled Flo. ‘Besides, we’re going
to have to do our business in front of one another now, so it don’t
matter.’

This was true, but all the same I kept both
hands firmly clamped over my bits, which made it quite hard when it came to the matter
of actually getting in the hip bath. Should I go in bum first so my knees came up to my
chin or did I just crouch in it like an idiot? What was the knack here? The blasted
thing was so damn small! Hang it all. With one hand still covering my bits, I hopped
from foot to foot, then took the plunge and slid in feet first.

Flo squealed as a great tidal wave of water
gushed
over the sides. ‘You’re flooding us,
Mollie!’ she screamed, falling on the bed with helpless laughter.
‘It’s like the
Titanic
in here.’

‘Help me, then,’ I
spluttered.

I floundered about naked like a fish out of
water, all flailing legs and arms. By the time Flo had stopped laughing enough to pull
me out, there was one inch of water left in the bath and the floor was flooded.

‘I’m just as grubby as
when I got in,’ I giggled, wrapping a towel round myself.

The wild laughter attracted the attentions
of Mabel, the fusty old head housemaid. She burst in, took one look at the state of the
floor and had a blue fit.

‘Whatever are you girls
doing?’ she gasped.

‘S-sorry,’ I said, my
teeth chattering. ‘The bath over run.’

‘I’ve a good mind to
make you change your own chamber pots,’ she tutted, shaking her head.
‘Heads in the clouds.’

Our subsequent attempts at a bath were no
more successful and I half wonder we didn’t give up altogether. We must have
stunk in them days. But we always made sure to give our feet a good wash in the basin
every night, come what may.

Despite the lack of washing facilities,
life in the country was good, albeit more pungent. Maybe it was the slower pace of life
or the lack of formal lunch and dinner parties to cater for, but everyone, even Mr
Orchard and Mrs Jones, seemed a bit more relaxed at Woodhall. Alan, the footman, and
John, the hallboy, were just as frisky and
Alan kept up his outrageous
flirting, seemingly oblivious that I only had eyes for Louis.

The vast kitchens were actually at the front
of the house on the ground floor, overlooking the lawns, so a continual stream of fresh
air and sunshine poured through the windows. And what with the constant presence of
handsome Louis about the place, things were definitely looking up!

I still had all the usual tasks to do, like
whitening the steps and scrubbing the floors, but Woodhall was a little backward
compared to London. For starters, milk was delivered from a neighbouring farm on a
horse-drawn cart. An old nag plodded up the drive each morning with his eyes
half-closed, tossing his mane about to flick off the summer flies. Soon as we heard the
clopping of hooves we’d leave out three kitchen jugs for the milkman to fill
with fresh frothy milk.

Instead of a range there was an actual coal
fire in the kitchen and an old boiler in the scullery, which was used to heat water for
the whole house. Ooh, I hated that old thing. In the mornings the coal fire had to be
raked down and then piled up with coal to the top. It took three buckets at a time and
the ash had to be swept out first thing and then heaped high again. With no gloves, my
face and hands would soon be black with soot and ash and, no matter how many times you
washed your hands, the smell of coal dust lingered on your skin and up your nose. Like I
say, I must have been filthy in them days. The coal for the fire and boiler was kept in
a sort of vast open cupboard in the kitchen, so when you needed more you just reached
over and grabbed a few more lumps. You
can’t imagine that
now, can you? Coal dust floating about in the kitchen near food! Coal fires were to
become obsolete during the 1960s and would largely die a death thanks to Clean Air
legislation, but back then they were the best form of heating for most people.