Beatrice's Diary

Saturday 8th October 1898

Oh dear me. What a day this has been. Mrs Williams, the cook has been shouting her orders at me all day. “Beatrice do this, Beatrice do that,” all day long. Still, at least the other servants appreciate me. My steak and kidney pudding went down a real treat with them today.

I shall make beef stew and dumplings tomorrow, they always enjoy that.

Young Sarah the scullery maid did make me jump today. Heavens forbid I thought I would die of fright when she dropped a saucepan on the stone floor. I called her a ‘STUPID GIRL’ and I must admit I feel a bit guilty now. She is a very good worker and I suppose she does not have a very good life. She cleans and washes up all day long and she is not as stupid, as I know she can read and write very well. Better than me the truth to be had as I have seen her writing and it is very neat and tidy.

At least I get opportunities to try out my cooking talents. I cook for the servants, prepare the pastry for Mrs Williams, cook the vegetables and all sorts of thing really. I love to cook, it makes me feel happy. Hopefully one day I will be the cook. What a grand day that will be. I will be respected by all. I will get to speak and confer with the housekeeper or Lady of the house; I shall make lists and do all the ordering of provisions. Yes, I will feel very important.

Tomorrow will be a busy day as Mr and Mrs Seymour have ten guests coming to dinner. It will be all hands on deck and I will have to work very hard.  I expect none of us will get to bed before eleven o’clock tomorrow. Mrs Williams will be cooking roast beef and vegetables and plum pudding and I will be cooking the soups and pastries.

Sarah will be busy. Let’s hope she will not drop the saucepan again. I noticed that Tom the butcher’s son smiled at her today. I get the idea that he is smitten with her. He asked me the other day how old she is. I told him it was none of his business and to leave the sixteen year old scullery maids alone. That made him smile.

I am three years older than Sarah. I was the scullery maid before her so I know how hard it is. It’s still hard but not quite so bad now. I know what’s it’s like to scrub the stone floors and scour the dishes, cutlery and pans. I still do but not so much. I am busy in the kitchen helping cook a lot of the time. The extra money comes in useful as well.

The weather has taken a change and this room has a chill in the air. It brings thoughts of Christmas and that will bring extra work in the household.

Now, I must bring my thoughts to a close and get some sleep as I am very tired and I have a busy day ahead.

My House Cleaning Remedy For Dull January Days

It has been a long day at work. Such a depressing time in January with all the excitement of Christmas behind us. I have sat at my desk all day and not once did the sun come peeking through.

 

So glad, to now, be home in my cosy little flat. I stand and look around and then stare at my rocking chair with fondness. After bringing it home from the boot sale, I have spent many long hours lovingly restoring it to its former glory. Made of Ash and elm and now re-varnished, I have made a comfy cushion for it. I spend many hours just thinking as I rock away in my chair.

 

I think of Mark, who lives upstairs, quite a bit. Was all very strange how it ended. We have passed each other but do not look or talk anymore.

 

I make myself a cup of tea and some cheese on toast and then sit in my rocking chair to think about the day and what if any chores I need to do this evening.

 

The food and the heating make me flush with warmth and I rock the chair slowly trying to keep awake.

 

I think about the plate I bought mum at the Boot fair. It had a red anchor painted underneath and I remember mum talking about them.

 

Her face was an absolute picture when she opened it and she screamed with excitement. "Oh my goodness Becky"! Where on earth did you get this?" she yelled, her face getting redder. "It's a Chelsea plate!" she shouted and promptly cuddled and kissed me in gratitude.

'

What do I know' I thought, smiling.

 

I stood up to draw the curtains and I noticed a dirty mark on the window. I must do some window cleaning I thought and then realised it was on the outside. It was too cold to go outside.

 

I remembered how grubby the microwave was so I decided to give that a clean. I put a couple of spoons of Bicarbonate of soda into a small bowl of water and placed it inside and turned it on full for a couple of minuets. I then switch off the power and carefully remove the very hot cup and the steam from the hot water had loosened any burnt on food on the walls of the microwave. With a damp cloth, I cleaned the inside very easily.

 

The plate that revolves needed a paste made up of Bicarbonate of soda and lemon juice to lift the hard burnt on stains.

 

That done I turned my attention to the cutlery drawer. It was grubby and had started to stick so I emptied it completely and rubbed an old candle along the runners. When I refitted the drawer, it opened and shut as smooth as possible. I cleaned it out with hot soapy water while it was empty and then put everything back in a nice clean drawer.

 

Lastly, I noticed my kitchen scissors were getting blunt so I folded a piece of kitchen foil a few times and made half a dozen cuts into it with the scissors. It sharpens them up nicely.

 

I have promised myself a big clean in the flat at the weekend so I take the opportunity to rest a while in my rocking chair while I give it some thought.

Diary Of a House Maid

It was 10.15pm and Sarah had finished all her chores for the day. She was a scullery maid for the affluent household of the Seymour family.

Although exhausted she sat on her bed and put pen to paper of her day at work in the big house.

Saturday 8th October 1898

"I am all in. I rose at 5.30am this morning, washed and dressed and started my day in the scullery. I gave the range a good stoke and got the water boiling for a pot of tea for cook and the upper servants.

I lit all the fires upstairs after cleaning them and emptied the chamber pots and cleaned them. It took longer than normal and I flapped as I must not be seen by the ‘family’.

I am considered the lowest in rank of servants.

Beatrice, the kitchen maid scolded me today for dropping the saucepan I was scouring. My ! It did make a clang. I felt my face turn beetroot. I observe the pastry cooking of Beatrice when I have the opportunity, as hopefully, one day I will be able to improve my position by learning new skills.

Mrs Williams, the cook is always shouting her orders at Beatrice and me. She starts her day discussing the days menu with the lady of the house. The cook is very important.

When I was carrying the heavy can of water upstairs today I nearly tripped. Thank heavens I only spilt a very small amount which I quickly mopped up with my apron. I worry that one day I might trip whilst carrying the coal for the fires in the bedrooms. I cannot imagine the mess it would make.

Oh my! My hands are rough and sore. No doubt due to all the floors and stairs I have to scrub and the pans I have to scour.

I miss my mother and father. I haven’t seen them since last Christmas. I have my father to thank for teaching me to read and write as well as my school. Still, I count my blessings to have a roof over my head and enough food to eat."

__________

Sarah closes her diary and climbs into bed. She shivers and pulls the blankets up around her chin. The beginnings of winter are in the air and causing a chill in the room.

Her thoughts return to her family. Her five brothers and her mother and father. She is the only girl in the family and her brothers used to boss her about but she loves them. They lived in a small terraced house in Hackney, East London and it was very cramped. She had to help with the housework from the age of nine. She would scrub the stone front step until it was so clean you could eat off it.

‘I am only sixteen and yet I feel it’s been a hard life so far. I wonder what it’s like to be rich like Mrs Seymour‘?  thought Sarah as sleep was beginning to envelope her.

Sarah drifted off to sleep as she faced another hard day to come.

Sarah The Skullery Maid

Sarah smoothed her white apron over her long grey dress and looked around the large Victorian scullery.

Since rising at 5.30am she had boiled water on the stove for early morning tea for the upper servants’. She had also had emptied the chamber pots and cleaned them out using a vinegar soaked cloth. When this was done she lit the fires in the house.

Sarah was only 16 and as the Scullery maid she was considered the lowliest employee in the Victorian household.

With her jobs done before breakfast it was now time to set about cleaning the scullery. She scrubbed the kitchen floor, cleaned the pantry, washed the saucepans and dusted the shelves.

When Sarah had a spare second her mind would wander and dream of meeting and falling in love with a rich gentleman who would take her away from all this drudgery.

Sarah quickly dismissed her thoughts before the Kitchen maid scolded her. She answered to her and the cook, although the cook would generally tell the kitchen maid to tell Sarah her chores.

She filled large cans with hot water and carried them up the stairs for use in the rooms.

Sarah’s stomach rumbled with hunger and reminded her it was time to prepare the vegetables.

After waiting on the other servants Sarah has to eat her own dinner in the kitchen to keep her eye on other food cooking on the stove.

The rest of the day was filled with washing up, cleaning the floors and tables. Washing clothes in the big sink using a big bar of soap and a washing board. Once they were dry she would heat the flat iron on the stove and iron the clothes while a second iron was heating up so she did not have to stop ironing.

In the evening after heating the water she would again carry the heavy jugs up the stairs to the rooms.

At about 9pm when the last of her chores were done Sarah would collapse with exhaustion into her bed in the Attic. Too tired even to dream of her Knight in shining armour.

A Day In The Life Of A Housemaid

Waking up early is always a part of the job; you cannot expect your own manager to do the work for you. It might seem like the work of a housemaid is not important, but it is. There are times when the work gets depressing, you want to watch television yourself and just eat popcorn just like what other people do on a rainy day but one has to treat the job like it mattered, because at the end of the day when the sheets have not been changed, the plates have not been washed, the floor is filled with mud and the furniture is dusty you are sure to encounter not only a very dissatisfied boss but a long line of angry family members asking why everything has not been in place. You have to treat your job as something holy, to see it as something sacred because if you will not then you can just easily give up what you are doing and then just go somewhere else.

I am reminded of some house maid character when watching the Downtown Abbey Series; they treat their job as a privilege, with the kind of economy that we have nowadays I am just glad to have something to do. If I come to think of it this is not a degrading job, the family I am working for needs me and they are like a family to me. Aside from having a free lodging I have been privileged to eat enticing food, something that other workers do not even experience, when they are outside the house premises I get to act as if I own the house. I clean every nook and cranny of this mansion and I have memorised where everything is, it is like managing an entire household, they say that mothers are the ones that should be responsible for this but with the fast paced world that we have nowadays even the mother of this household asks me for help. You have to see what you do as something important, even the children rely on me on a daily basis to ensure that they have clothes to wear. Sometimes I imagine what if I am the housemaid of the President of the United States and for some reason I forget to do my job well then everything has a ripple effect, somewhere out there in the world will not get their problem solved if somehow I failed to place the President and his wife in a good mood.

The work is really challenging, before I become a housemaid I did not have much respect for them, you just read about them or pass by them but because circumstances for me have changed I gained respect for the job that I do. Working for 8 hours or more, bending, lifting, vacuuming, changing linens, making beds, wiping, polishing, moping and everything else in between is no joking matter. If there is anything I gain from this one is the fact that I have a much harder time gaining weight.