Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid (22 page)

But what I loved most about London was its
diversity. Not two minutes after watching a man get pelted with clods of earth while the
fidelity of his wife was questioned, we found ourselves in an altogether more genteel
place.

Having tea at Lyons Corner House in Marble
Arch was
a dazzling experience. Flo led me past the art deco gold
entrance and, once inside, all was serene, calm and restrained chatter as ladies and
gentlemen took afternoon tea on tables laid with starched white tablecloths.

A waitress known as a
‘nippie’ in a black uniform, starched apron and a frilly hat with a
black velvet ribbon in it, led us to a table for two. I smiled warmly and thanked her as
she held back our chair. I knew what it was like to wait on others in a uniform so I
wanted her to know I appreciated her efforts.

Well, what a tea we had: scones that could
rival Mrs Jones’s for lightness, lashings of cream and little silver dishes
oozing with strawberry jam. As Flo and I tucked in and relished our surroundings, men in
tuxedos played in an orchestra at the back of the vast room.

‘Nice to be serenaded while we
have our tea, isn’t it, Flo?’ I giggled, sipping my tea with one
finger cocked out like I’d seen Mr Orchard do.

‘I’ll say,’
she sighed. ‘I feel like the other half. Talking of which, we best wolf this
down.’

It seemed such a shame to leave this warm
haven with people waiting on us for a change, but if we were even a minute late Mrs
Jones would square us up. Running outside, we laughed together as we jumped on to the
back of a hop-on, hop-off red bus and clambered up to the top deck.

‘What a lovely
afternoon,’ I beamed, clutching my fabric to my bosom. ‘Dresses and
cake. Aren’t we blessed, Flo?’

‘We certainly are,
Mollie,’ she agreed. ‘What more is there to life?’

‘Boys?’ I suggested.

We were still laughing when, all of a sudden,
a strange thing happened. The bus was travelling down Park Lane when a man leapt to his
feet and jabbed at the window excitedly. ‘145 Piccadilly,’ he said.
‘That must be the Duke and Duchess of York’s
children.’

All heads on the bus swivelled left.
Situated as we were on the top deck, we could all see over the high brick wall that
separated the gardens of a Piccadilly town house from Park Lane. There, enjoying the
spring sunshine, were two little girls with their nanny. One was about seven years old
and sat playing happily with a younger girl of about two. The two-year-old toddled about
on unsteady legs as her elder sister, the seven-year-old, smiled and encouraged her.

A buzz ran round the whole top deck and, as
the bus stopped in traffic, we all stared in silence. Little did we know it back then,
but we were watching our future queen playing with her little sister, Princess
Margaret.

This was some three years before the
abdication crisis. Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary York was to become, after the
abdication of her uncle and subsequent crowning of her father, Bertie, our future Queen
Elizabeth II. But back then she was just a young girl innocently playing in the spring
sunshine with her little sister, unaware that a whole busful of people were watching her
and equally unaware of the plans that fate had in store for her.

They looked so sweet in their little dresses
and I stared, quite spellbound, at their pretty peaches-and-cream complexions framed by
soft fair curls. Their nanny, Clara Knight, known as Alla, who was later described as an
ever-present benign dictator, kept a watchful eye on them.

It’s a wonder Elizabeth seemed so
normal, closeted away in her ivory tower. The rest of the world was quite obsessed with
her. Chocolates, china sets and children’s hospital wards, even a territory in
Antarctica, were named after her; the people of Newfoundland had her image on their
postage stamps; songs were written in her honour and Madame Tussauds displayed a wax
model of her astride a pony. Yet there she was, a flesh and blood little girl, enjoying
a normal childhood, seemingly oblivious to the attention.

Just as abruptly as it had stopped, the bus
pulled off again and we left our future queen behind.

‘Well I never,’ said
Flo.

I’ve never forgotten that moment
and it seems frozen into my memory. Today the queen is eighty-six and I think
she’s a marvellous woman with all that she does, but I still prefer to think
of her as she was back then, a happy, carefree little girl.

We was full of it, but when we got back to
Cadogan Square there was a visitor in the kitchen. Mrs Jones’s niece, who
worked in service nearby, had dropped in and together she and Mrs Jones babbled away in
Welsh. Flo and I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. As we got on
with chopping vegetables for dinner, every so often they would throw us a look, jabber
something in Welsh and then burst into laughter.

‘Whatever are they talking
about?’ hissed Flo.

‘Us most probably,’ I
whispered back.

Who knew, who cared, I’d had an
absolute gem of an afternoon and I wasn’t about to let them two take the
shine off it. I’d clean forgotten my heartache over George
and had enjoyed a simply amazing time.

Just then, Mr Orchard swept into the kitchen
and turned to Flo and me with an icy stare. ‘Mr Stocks requires your presence
in the drawing room immediately.’

We stared at each other, alarmed. Oh no. Had
he found out about us hanging around at Speakers’ Corner? Or, worse, about us
sneaking out to the village dance?

‘Follow me,’ Mr Orchard
spat, turning so abruptly that the coat-tails of his jacket flicked out behind him. As
we climbed the stairs that led to the good part of the house my stomach did little
flip-flops. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

We were never summoned upstairs. Ever …

Tips from a 1930s Kitchen
…
CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Nothing tasted as good as the Christmas pudding Mrs Jones cooked. She adapted it from Mrs Beeton’s recipe. Never fool yourself into thinking that a shop-bought one can ever taste as good as this. This makes enough for two puddings so you can keep one for next year. You don’t need to freeze it. Why is everyone so obsessed with freezing? We coped perfectly well without a freezer. Just store it somewhere nice and cool and dry.

8 oz (225 g) beef suet

4 oz (110 g) mixed peel

1 lemon

8 oz (225 g) sugar

8 oz (225 g) raisins

Half a grated nutmeg

½ oz (10 g) mixed spice

8 oz (225 g) breadcrumbs

8 oz (225 g) sultanas

4 oz (110 g) currants

2 oz (50 g) desiccated coconut

4 oz (110 g) shredded almonds

Pinch of salt

Cup of milk stout (or Guinness if you can’t get milk stout)

4 eggs

2 large glasses of brandy (one for the pudding, one for drinking while cooking)

Shred the suet. Finely shred the mixed peel. Peel and chop the lemon rind. Put all the dry ingredients in a basin and mix well. Add the milk stout, stir in the eggs one at a time, and add the brandy and the strained juice of the lemon. Mix and work through thoroughly until everything is blended well then spoon into a well-buttered pudding basin. Boil or steam for at least five hours before serving with brandy butter and brandy sauce.

HOUSEHOLD TIP

In my day we polished pans with a mixture of vinegar, silver sand and lemon juice, but sprinkling a dirty pan with washing powder and soaking in boiling water before rinsing thoroughly does the job. If you want them to come up sparkling new, though, invest in some silver sand and mix with vinegar and lemon juice. It really does work.

 

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes
it

unspeakably desirable.

Mark Twain

All too soon we had left behind the
servants’ quarters and had ascended into the smart hallway of Cadogan Square.
Like a couple of rabbits caught in headlights, we gazed around at our new, opulent
surroundings.

‘Wait here,’ ordered Mr
Orchard as he left the hallway and disappeared off into the drawing room.

Flo and I were soon joined by Irene, the
housemaid, who looked every bit as bewildered as us. ‘What’s this
about?’ she whispered, tugging nervously at her apron.

I shook my head and was surprised to feel my
heart pounding in my chest. ‘Darned if I know,’ I replied.

The door to the drawing room swung open.

Please, God, don’t have found out about sneaking out to the dance …
please. I’ll never do anything wrong as long as I live, I promise.

‘Mr Stocks has requested your
company in the drawing
room,’ said Mr Orchard. ‘He
thought you might like to witness his niece before she is presented as a debutante to
his Royal Highness at court.’

Flo, Irene and myself stared at him, utterly
baffled. Mr Orchard, meanwhile, looked as if he had just handed us the Crown Jewels on a
silver butler’s tray.

‘Yes, of course, Mr
Orchard,’ said Flo, recovering herself first. ‘That would indeed be
an honour.’

We all glanced nervously at each other
before shuffling after him into the drawing room. Mr Stocks sat in the corner of the
room in a leather armchair, looking on as a proud father might do, and there, in the
middle of the room, was a vision in white.

A pretty young woman with dark hair stood
demurely on the Turkish rug. She was dressed head to toe in a long white silky dress and
long white satin gloves covered her slender arms. A single diamond glinted from her
neck, which was as long and creamy white as a swan’s. The chiffon train of her
dress fell in soft folds around her feet. Her head was held so straight and high it was
as if there was an invisible string pulling her up to the ceiling and on her face was a
look so inscrutable it was impossible to guess at how she was feeling.

What a strange and bizarre situation. What
on earth this girl must have felt, being gawped at by a scullery maid, kitchen maid and
housemaid, was anyone’s guess, but she was obviously adept at keeping her
feelings under wraps. She can’t have been much older than us, but standing
there with our uniforms and aprons and bitten-down, slightly grubby nails, we must have
looked like paupers next to a princess.

‘This is my niece,’ said
Mr Stocks finally, breaking the awkward silence. ‘She is about to be presented
at court before starting the season. She looks quite lovely, wouldn’t you
agree?’

‘Oh yes,’ we all gushed
as one. ‘Pretty as a picture, sir. Most gracious.’

The girl bestowed us with a flicker of a
smile.

We all stared at each other. We were only a
couple of yards apart, but we were from totally opposite ends of the social spectrum.
She was off to curtsey to King George V at Buckingham Palace, before attending the
prestigious Queen Charlotte Ball. I was about to go back downstairs to peel a mountain
of spuds. And yet I knew the gesture wasn’t meant as a malevolent one by Mr
Stocks. It wouldn’t even have crossed his mind for a minute that it would look
like he was rubbing our noses in it. In his mind he obviously thought he was being most
considerate by allowing us young girls the ‘treat’ of seeing his
niece.

We didn’t really realize it then,
but we were witnessing a most curious tradition and one that has long since died out.
Now, of course, we look back on these traditions with a mixture of curiosity and
amusement, but in those days a blue-blooded gal’s ‘coming-of-age
season’ meant everything.

Presentation of debutantes at court was an
elaborate social ceremony that originated in the 1780s when King George III decided that
the prettiest and most well-bred girls from the court circle should be presented to
Queen Charlotte so that they could find an appropriate partner for marriage. The most
prestigious and important party
of the season remained the Queen
Charlotte Ball throughout the 1930s.