Up and Down Stairs

by Jeremy Musson

  A strict hierarchy was in place, ‘at the top of which was the butler, Cassidy (never Mr in those days), and Michael Kenneally at the bottom. He slept in a room in the attics. If a visiting servant came to stay who outranked him, the pantry boy had to move out on to a truckle bed in the corridor.’ As Mr Sykes later remarked: ‘Imagine anyone putting up with that now.’47

  Kenneally became footman and then in 1959 butler. According to Mr Sykes, ‘He turned buttling into an art form. He dressed the part to perfection, black jacket and pinstripes for formal daywear; a white apron for cleaning the silver; and a black tailcoat for grand dinners. Those under him were drilled in the laying of an impeccable table.’48 Legendary for his pranks, Mr Kenneally once tried to serve dessert from a bicycle, dressing up as a maid and curtseying to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. He was also described as liable to ‘overindulge in butler’s perks’ – unfinished bottles of wine. Mr Sykes says: ‘As children we spent all our time in the kitchen areas, more than in the front part of the house. Michael was like a friendly adult figure and our parents never objected to us spending our time there.’49

  Inevitably, Mr Kenneally had to contend with the inevitable staff shrinkage, even though the household continued to be run on an ‘Edwardian scale’ until the death of Sir Richard Sykes in 1978. The house and estate were inherited by his son, Sir Tatton, who employed a smaller staff. Mr Kenneally had to run ‘a pared-down household in which he found himself as much janitor as butler’. In addition to his traditional duties, he found, like many modern butlers, that ‘he became clock winder, boiler man, electrician, and cellar man and dogkeeper. He could turn his hand to anything.’

  Mr Kenneally died in 1999, only fifteen days after retiring. Christopher Simon Sykes, Sir Tatton’s brother, observes: ‘He was not replaced, partly because it would have been so difficult to replace Michael; it is today a much more mobile profession and the school-trained butler is a rather more mobile figure, unlikely to spend his whole career with one family.’50

  Mr Kenneally was only one among many who defined life at Sledmere in the 1950s of Christopher Simon Sykes’s childhood, described in his book, The Big House (2005): ‘the person we were all most in awe of in the house was Dorothy, the housekeeper. [She was] short, with pebble-lens spectacles . . . a devout Catholic, with a strong character and a short temper, which meant she was absolutely not to be crossed’. Like all housekeepers from the seventeenth century onwards, ‘she knew every inch of the house like the back of her hand and woe betide anyone who moved anything without her permission.’

  The centre of her world was the two pantries, tall rooms with tiled floors and huge china sinks, repositories for the brushes and dusters, mops, buckets and cleansers ‘with which her team of four or five ladies would arm themselves for their daily battle against dirt and dust.’ They started at dawn, so that the house awoke to the sound of the shutters being opened and the smell of fires being lit.51

  Mr Sykes also recalls the chauffeur and valet Jack Clark, who had worked for his father since the late 1930s and returned to his post after wartime service. Clark ‘saw more of Papa than he did of his wife, Lilian, who ran the village post office’. ‘Jack’, as he was known, was ‘the living incarnation of Jeeves’, always dressed immaculately in a blue suit, plus his chauffeur’s hat. His first duties of the day were as valet, taking Sir Richard his breakfast, running his bath and laying out his clothes.

  Mr Sykes remembers Jack saying, ‘I always chose his clothes because I knew exactly what he would wear.’ He spent the rest of the day in the garage, until the evening when he would lay out his father’s dinner jacket, even if there were no guests. When his father went down for drinks, ‘he would turn down the bed and lay out his pyjamas. If there were guests he would help in the dining room.’ In fact, Mr Sykes says that Jack was so hard-working that he would often be found helping with the washing up in houses where his employer was staying.52

  Sledmere is now looked after by a team of dailies who come in from the local village. There is still a full-time cook, Mrs Maureen Magee, who has been there for twenty-seven years, beginning in 1982, and has strong memories of working with Michael Kenneally. She took over from a previous cook, ‘who worked with me and showed me what was what. She told me lots of short cuts and highlighted things in the recipe books that were family favourites.’53 There ‘was still a full-time housekeeper and butler, Michael, then’, and extra help would be brought in for shooting parties. When the shooting is let now, ‘the same family come every year and stay in the house. I cook for them too. This includes a good breakfast, a shoot lunch at the house, of two courses, cheese and celery, and then dinner of three courses, cheese, celery and coffee.’54

  Mrs Magee says: ‘I think sometimes it has been like two generations since I arrived. Sir Tatton had just taken over when I came, and is much more informal than his parents, who changed every night for dinner.’ The country-house tradition is maintained, however: ‘Food is served at table and guests help themselves, although some things like a first course or fruit fool can look attractive if served in individual portions. This is not the country-house tradition and the old butler Michael would say: “It’s not a café, you know!” The advantage is that guests take only what they like and there is no waste.’55

  Tea continues to be served in silver teapots by maids dressed in black and white. Mrs Magee loves to see everything prepared for a grand dinner party: ‘The housemaids clean the silver; everything comes out on the polished mahogany. The girls take a great pride in the presentation and arrange a display down the middle of the table. It can look absolutely wonderful, with the drapes drawn, and the fire lit.’

  Today Mrs Magee shares the cooking of shoot dinners with friend and colleague Hester (a specialist in desserts: ‘She’s marvellous, I don’t know how I would manage without her. She is in her thirties and very energetic’), who also runs the teashop for the visitors to the house. Opening houses to the public often brought new blood into country-house staffs, making them larger than they were in the immediate post-war years.56

  Although Mrs Magee originally came from a different part of Yorkshire, the family of her husband Ken, whom she met at Sledmere, have a long connection to the Sledmere estate. Ken’s father was the farm bailiff, and he himself used to work at the famous Sledmere stud, founded in 1801. Now he works part-time in the gardens. They live today in a lodge to the estate.

  In the smaller staffs of the 1950s and 1960s, the stalwarts of country-house life were often a married couple, living in the house and providing devoted care, both to the building and to the family, who because of the demands of their other estates or commitments in London might themselves often be in residence for only a few months of the year.57 One such couple, Alec and Annie Bagshaw, lived in and looked after Boughton House in Northamptonshire in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, working there for two successive Dukes of Buccleuch and their families. Not only was the panelling in the great hall made by Mr Bagshaw but he also catalogued the armoury and prepared it for display to the visiting public. Their daughter, Mrs Rosalinde Tebbut, offers a fascinating testimony to their lives.

  My father was born in 1909, and started in the estates workshop in 1932. He was a journeyman before coming to Boughton; his grandfather was a carpenter attached to Boughton too. From 1942, my father was in the Royal Navy and when he came out in 1945 he was attached directly to Boughton House, helping to keep the house going.

  When I grew up we lived in the village of Warkton. My mother worked at Boughton as a housemaid, because my father was already employed there as a carpenter. About the time I got married in 1956, Mrs Foy, the housekeeper, retired and my mother took over from her. Mrs Foy had been quite a traditional type, and the butler, Mr Batts, used to look after the dining room, the wine cellar, the silver and service. My parents lived in from 1957 and retired in the early 1970s, by which time my father had been working at Boughton for forty-five years.58

  The Bagshaws were placed in sole charge
of Boughton while the duke, his family and other staff travelled between London and their other estates, Bowhill in the Borders and Drumlanrig: ‘My mother and father enjoyed their work, and always took their annual holidays when the duke and duchess moved to Scotland. The butler and cook would go with them to their other estates and each house had its own housekeeper.’

  Most of the housework was done by daily cleaners, while Mr Bagshaw, although officially the carpenter, effectively became the man of all works and custodian:

  My father also did things like picking up the duke from the station. A lot of the staff at Boughton then would travel down from Scotland to live in while the family were there and then go back again when they left.

  They were wonderful employers. When someone wrote a book saying how horrible working as a servant was, my mother was really indignant and said she had been wonderfully treated. Although she couldn’t deny the author’s own experience, hers was quite different. She had a pleasant time working at Boughton; the work was quite specialised and knowledge came with the years.

  It was a proper little community and you had to get on with people. Things changed when the new duke [Walter], the present duke’s father, inherited the estate in 1973. They still had big house parties between Easter and August. The new duke’s wife, Duchess Jane, used to send notes to my mother detailing what rooms were required for which guest, who was staying and what they needed. The same routine was followed every year. Fruit and vegetables came from the kitchen gardens, and flowers were cut for the rooms. Duke Walter would come for the odd weekend on his own and my mother would cook for him then. The duke, a big forestry man, would come just to look at the tree planting.59

  Mr Bagshaw became an authority on one aspect of the collection:

  My father created the armoury, for the guns and pistols, when the house opened to the public, and became very knowledgeable. He was even consulted by the Tower of London. He also restored furniture. He was the house carpenter but in a way he was more like a curator, and he used to help hang pictures and tapestries. He helped clean the silver too – it was usually done by him or the butler. After my parents retired they both acted as guides at Boughton.

  They really loved that house and I used to tease them that it meant more to them than I did. In truth, we all enjoyed Boughton. Our family could use the pool and tennis courts when the duke’s family were away.60

  In modern times the country house is usually maintained by the daily cleaner, sometimes working in teams of two or three. In many cases they may have long associations with the family or the estate and may even have worked for the same house for twenty or thirty years. One such is Della Robins, the daily at Chavenage in Gloucestershire. When asked about her forty-eight years with the family and the house, she revealed a familiar nexus of relationships.

  I came to Chavenage when I was fifteen and a half, and went to the local school. The Lowsley-Williamses were looking for someone to help look after the children, so I was taken on as a nanny’s help. When my parents were divorced, my mother became housekeeper to Frank Baker, a widower and the cowman at Chavenage to Major Lowsley-Williams. Frank retired in 1966 and later he and my mother got married. My husband’s father was the maintenance man at Chavenage. My father-in-law, Fred Robins, also worked at Chavenage for over fifty years.61

  When Della arrived in 1961, there had been some post-war scaling down but there was still a traditional household of staff:

  When I came there was a cook, Mrs Bianek (who was a Polish refugee), and her husband, and a butler, George Thomas, and someone to do the laundry. Originally there were three gardeners, Mr Bianek, Mr Medcroft and Mr Jay. I had a short overlap with a nanny, and then became the nanny myself. It’s just me now! Outside, today, there is Paddy Jackson, who was once the groom and now helps do the lawn, the logs and the outside jobs.

  At first I lived with my parents in a cottage on the estate. I was up at half past eight and back home by five-thirty or six o’clock. I married in 1966, and when our first son was born in 1967 I worked different hours. I didn’t think about how long I would work at Chavenage, it all just happened. When the cook left she wasn’t replaced, and Mrs Lowsley-Williams took over the cooking, but there was always some member of staff about. Thomas the butler died about twenty years ago. I have a great affection for the house; it hasn’t changed over the years, despite the numbers of visitors.62

  [Her original duties were] mostly looking after the children and babysitting but then I took over the cleaning. I especially like cleaning the brass. The hardest thing was polishing the oak boards, but better Hoovers and polishers have made the job a lot easier. When I was first here there were three cleaning ladies but they had only white fluffy mops and had to get down on their knees to apply the polish. It was just a family home then and there were nothing like the number of visitors we have today with weddings, corporate days and coach parties. The floors can get pretty dreadful when you have a wedding party.

  [On a typical day] I come in every morning, do the ironing, make the beds, and look after the living area. Then if there has been a wedding or event at the weekend, I move on to the front rooms of the house. On open days I do the flowers in the house and in the chapel, usually with flowers from the garden.

  I can still remember the house when it was lived in by Mr Lowsley-Williams’s uncle, Colonel John, and his two sisters. One sister, Mrs del Court, used to take us to Sunday school in Tetbury, and always organised a party here at Chavenage for the children on the estate. When Colonel John was still alive, as children we looked upon the house as something special.

  My mother worked as a cleaner for the major, Mr Lowsley-Williams’s father, at the Manor Farm. Now, after cleaning in the morning I help Joanna [Lowsley-Williams] with the catering, lunches and cream teas, especially when we have coach parties, but mostly serving the public. I enjoy it; you meet such a range of people. There are not so many people working for the estate now as there were in the early 1960s; it’s all contracted out. Paddy and I are the only two full-time workers left. When I first got married Barry and I lived in the house where I had grown up, then we were offered the flat in the stables at Chavenage, and later we moved to Avening where my husband came from. Both my children were christened in the church and my daughter had the blessing for her wedding there.63

  If the cleaner is still central to country-house life, so is the indispensable maintenance man. One of the longest-serving members of staff at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland is Graham Luke, who in 1965, at the age of fifteen, was taken on as an apprentice joiner in the estate works. ‘I saw the advertisement in the local paper. I first earned £2 17s 6d, in “olden-day money” as my children call it. I worked forty-four hours a week including Saturday mornings.’ He has now been involved with the care of the castle for thirty-five years. ‘It’s a wonderful building, unique, I love it. It’s the Windsor of the North.’64

  He first reported to ‘the clerk of works, known as “Cappy” Hepple – as in flat cap, I think. I remember that I thought he was incredibly old then, but I was only fifteen. He was then probably the age I am now and he retired soon after I joined. After that, Ian August became clerk of works. We still have a maintenance department of joiners, painters and builders, but no plumbers or electricians. We did once but not any more. When I first came the staff was not that big, about ten, but in the 1970s it went up to twenty-five.’

  At that time the estate workers were renovating cottages:

  The estate had a lot of them; most of north Northumberland belonged to the duke, with lots of little villages. In 1975 we started rewiring the castle, putting in the telephone as well as intruder and fire alarms. By then I was a joiner. I came to work up at the castle and just never left. Officially now I am the ‘maintenance liaison officer’, which means if there is a problem in the castle, or in any of the family’s houses, I have to go and inspect it, and assess whether our own works department can deal with it or not.

  To the fifteen-year-old that he was then
, the duke and duchess seemed:

  very regal, and part of a much more formal life. Everything was run by a housekeeper, Mrs Richardson, who used to frighten the life out of me. She was next to God and what she said went. Oh, she was a demon. Nobody was allowed into the castle without her say-so. Even if you had come to do some work she had asked for, you would be met at the back door and sent along to her sitting room. Then you would have to state what your business was, what exactly you were going to do, and usually why you hadn’t done it sooner to boot.

  She had a room lined with oak cupboards for the linen. Sometimes you would see the maids queuing up for fresh supplies. The cupboards are all gone now. She had a chaise longue in there and a coal fire. It was the duty of one of the maids to lay and light that fire every morning, and then Mrs Richardson would have her breakfast in front of it.