The Good Old Days? Bah!

I freely admit that I've been a long-time fan of Upstairs, Downstairs and, more recently, Downton Abbey.

Because of Downton Abbey, I've been reading a number of books written by people who worked downstairs during the early 1900's.  As snarky as people can be as portrayed in the TV series, trust me, things could be even more horrific in actual fact.

The two most recent books read are A Cook's Tale by Nancy Jackman with Tom Quinn and They Also Serve by Bob Sharpe.

Nancy Jackman was born in 1907 and went into service at age 14.  She worked until 1961.  In her first position her employer tried to rape her.  She managed to fight him off and left for home the next day.  In her next position, she started as a scullery/kitchen maid.  She worked there long enough to know how everything was supposed to be done, at which point her employers fired their cook.  Promoting the kitchen maid to cook was cheaper than keeping the original cook.  One of her employers was a doctor who appeared respectable, but when his wife went to visit her relatives, he'd hire a couple of prostitutes and engage in wild and crazy sex.

She did make an interesting observation on why the upper classes were so weird and possible crazy.  The upper classes like to have several 'shoots' every year.  As to be expected, they would use birdshot to kill the birds.  The problem is - there's no way to remove all the birdshot while preparing the birds to be eaten - that is if you still wanted it to look like a bird.  So, when the upper classes were eating their pheasant/quail/whatever, they'd end up with some birdshot in their mouths.  It was considered rude to remove the birdshot from their mouths so they would swallow it. 

The problem?  Birdshot was (is?) made of lead.  As we all know now, ingesting lead can poison you.  They might have just as well been eating lead paint chips.  This could explain a lot of very truly weird behavior on the part of the upper classes.

One rather disgusting side effect - the birdshot wouldn't digest completely on its way through.  It would end up in the chamber pots or, later, the toilets.  The problem is - it didn't flush well and would occasionally stop up the toilets.  The housemaids would then have to clear things out.  Ewwww!

Bob Sharpe (They Also Serve) started as a hallboy.  This is essentially a dogsbody - he got to do all the tiresome chores that nobody else wanted to do.  These included emptying chamber pots.  One day he was running across the courtyard to empty one.  The courtyard was slick and he fell.  A housemaid did condescend to niceness by using warm water to sluice the stuff off him.  However, he had to work in his wet clothes for the rest of the day.  He later became a footman.  Part of that job was to stand motionless behind the diners during the hours-long dinners.  (Unless someone specifically asked him to do something.)  He later rose to become a butler. 

According to both Jackman and Sharpe, the hours were brutal, you could often work 15 hour days.  Jackman talked about one cook who spent a 15 hour day cooking various meals for her employers and their guests.  The cook finally went to bed but was roused around 2 AM because her employers and guests had sat up late playing cards and now wanted the cook to make them hot chocolate.  That's why Jackman later insisted on living outside the household where she was employed.

The good old days?  Hardly.

Papillon