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IT WAS when my youngest son was going to grammar school and my eldest was preparing for the university that I realized we had nothing in common to talk about except the weather. They would come home and discuss history, astronomy, French, and all those kind of things, some of which meant nothing to me. I’d never tried to keep up with the Joneses, but I determined to have a shot at keeping up with the boys.
First of all I thought about taking a correspondence course. But apart from the expense, you’re on your own doing a correspondence course; if you don’t feel like working there’s no one to urge you on, you’re not in rivalry with anyone and it doesn’t matter how long you take.
Then one of my boys’ history masters told me about a course of lectures given by Professor Bruce, Extra-Mural Professor from Oxford. They weren’t expensive, I think it was only a shilling a time, or cheaper if you took the whole lot, twenty-four of them. I took the lot.
It was fascinating to me this course of lectures. He must have been a brilliant teacher because the lessons were in the evening from half past seven to half past nine, with a break in between for a cup of coffee, but often with the discussion that used to go on afterwards it was eleven o’clock before I got away, and eleven thirty before I got home. My husband used to say, ‘I don’t know what kind of education you’re getting that keeps you out till half past eleven.’
But it was a real eye-opener for me, I’d always thought history was a dry thing, a succession of dates and things like that.
Then I started going to evening classes in philosophy, history, and literature. The only thing that really beat me was this metaphysical philosophy. You know when you first start anything, you want to be all high-hat. You don’t want to go to the same things that everyone else goes to, you want to come out with some high-falutin’ name, so I signed on for metaphysical philosophy.
I never knew what it was all about. All I could understand was it was something to do with being a hedonist, or some such thing. After six evenings I decided that it wasn’t for me. But that was the only subject where I didn’t stick the course out.
Where has it all taken me? Well, I passed my ‘O’ levels at the age of fifty-eight, and I’m now taking the Advance levels which I hope to get before I’m sixty. People say to me, ‘I can’t understand you doing it.’
I think it springs from the beginnings. All life is bound up together, isn’t it? I liked school, I won a scholarship which I couldn’t afford to take; I went into domestic service. I was dissatisfied and all this dissatisfaction was worked out in my attitudes to the environments of domestic service. If I’d been something else I should have been militant against that life, I expect.
When I got married, I had the boys and became a mother pure and simple. Then when they were off my hands it came out again.
People say, ‘I suppose you got bored with life’, but it wasn’t as sudden as that. The seeds are in you and although it may take ten, twenty, or forty years, eventually you can do what you wanted to do at the beginning.
Would I have been happier if I’d been able to do what I wanted when I was young? I might have been. I’m not one of those who pretend that because you’re poor there’s something wonderful about it. I’d love to be rich. There’s nothing particularly beautiful about being poor, having the wrong sort of clothes, and not being able to go to the right sort of places. I don’t particularly envy rich people but I don’t blame them. They try and hang on to their money, and if I had it I’d hang on to it too. Those people who say the rich should share what they’ve got are talking a lot of my eye and Betty Martin; it’s only because they haven’t got it they think that way. I wouldn’t reckon to share mine around.
Looking back on what I’ve said it may seem as if I was very embittered with my life in domestic service. Bitterness does come to the fore because it was the strong feeling I had; and the experiences are the ones that stay in my mind now.
I know it’s all dead and gone. Things like that don’t happen now. But I think it’s worth not forgetting that they did happen.
But we did have happy times and I did enjoy life. Remember, I’d never been used to a lot of freedom.
Domestic service does give an insight and perhaps an inspiration for a better kind of life. You do think about the way they lived and maybe unbeknown to yourself you try to emulate it. The social graces may not mean very much but they do help you to ease your way through life.
So despite what it may sound like, I’m not embittered about having had to go into domestic service. I do often wonder what would have happened if I could have realized my ambition and been a teacher, but I’m happy now, and as my knowledge increases and my reading widens, I look forward to a happy future.
Margaret Powell was born in 1907 in Hove, and left school at the age of 13 to start working. At 14, she got a job in a hotel laundry room, and a year later went into service as a kitchen maid, eventually progressing to the position of cook, before marrying a milkman called Albert. In 1968 the first volume of her memoirs, Below Stairs, was published to instant success and turned her into a celebrity. She followed this up with Climbing the Stairs, The Treasure Upstairs and The Margaret Powell Cookery Book. She also co-authored three novels, tie-ins to the television series Beryl’s Lot, which was based on her life story. She died in 1984.
First published 1968 by Peter Davies Ltd.
First published in paperback 1970 by Pan Books
This edition published 2011 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books
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Copyright © Margaret Powell and Leigh Crutchley 1968
The right of Margaret Powell and Leigh Crutchley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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