Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Spent fifty years in domestic service and wrote a best-selling book about it.
On the island
Eight records
Bless This HouseFavourite
I've chosen that because I'm very fond of my home.
it was used to be played on a Sunday morning in Studley Church.
Master Ernest Lough and the Choir of the Temple Church, London
I used to sing in Studley Church Choir myself. And when I heard this record I thought he sang most beautifully, that boy.
I've adored that record ever since I heard it, and I don't think anybody sings it better than her.
I'd like that because it's because of my traveling. I went to Vienna.
Gaumont-British Symphony Orchestra
I went to see it. Four or five times in London.
Makes you think of all the flowers growing up and everything. And also I like the piano.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:43What would you hate most about being on a desert island, apart from being alone?
The insects there, if there was any. I couldn't bear them, and I never have liked scrawlers.
Presenter asks
4:24How did you manage to stay at school until you were sixteen [when fourteen was the usual age]?
Yes, but mm mister Lister, the head s the schoolmaster, tried to teach me a little bit more, but you see, he couldn't teach me any more than what was normally taught at an elementary school stuck on the edge of Dallagil Moor. And my mother had ambitions. You see, I wanted to travel, and to be a ladies' maid, and my mother thought if I learnt French that would be an asset.
Presenter asks
5:29Was there a great deal of alternative for a country girl with no money, other than domestic service?
No, nothing at all. You see, we were too far away from Ripon or anywhere to go into a shop, we'll say. Or I would have liked to have gone into a bank, but my mother hadn't the security money, so that was that.
The keepsakes
The book
Charles Dickens
I would like to take the volumes of Charles Dickens, because I've never had the time to read.
The luxury
a picture by Nikolski called Summer Arrangements
I think I would like to take a picture by Nikolski, and it's called Summer Arrangements, and it's a lovely lot of roses, and as I have a rose garden
Presenter asks
6:14How much money were you paid [in your first job] and how much time did you get off?
Twenty four pounds a year. Very little. In London I had half a day off and half a day on a Sunday, Sunday afternoon to do what you liked, and perhaps come in about nine o'clock at night. It just depended if you went to church you had to come straight home. But in the country, well, it was different. It was easier because uh we used to go out in an afternoon perhaps to the river and walk down the town shop. But we always went to the dances in the country. That was our free time.
Presenter asks
9:05How did you end up working for Lady Astor?
I wanted to leave Lady Cranburn then because I wanted to get more money. So I applied different situation. that was vacant with Lady Astor's daughter. And the wages then were sixty pounds a year. Of course I thought I was a millionaire. Anyway, I hadn't been long with Miss Wissy. We really had a trip to America. When I came back Lady Aster's maid had left. And she'd already had three in a year. And the butler told me that she was going to take me off her daughter for herself. So I was prepared for a ledge when she tackled me. She got me in the boudoir, and she looked at me. She says, You either look after me or you go. So I got the ultimatum.
Presenter asks
19:16Did you ever get mixed up in anything as disgraceful as poaching?
Well, I was an accessory after the fact, certainly, because I used to help my father make those little bullets. And he was rather clever with the catapult.
“I'd lived with aristocrats, and of course they never put you in the position of answering back, but of course, when I went to Lady Astora, of course, I had to answer back.”
“I put my cards on the table, meant every word I said. No sex in the book, no scandal in the book, and I have no money.”
“I did a little fishing once when a ladeship took me to Jura and where I was very bored. And I know she sent uh Arthur the Valet and I out to fish. We caught seventy five mackerel. And I caught a great big Saith, I think the name of the fish was, and I took this fish in through a lad to his Lordship and her ladyship in the drawing room. And I was so proud of it I thought at least we should get a little bit of it. Anyway, Arthur and I never saw the head nor the tail.”