Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid

by Moran, Mollie

  ‘It’s ruined!’ she’d shriek. ‘Chuck it out and start again. Never boil a sauce, dolly daydream. Keep your mind off Alan and back on this hollandaise. A good sauce chef is about genius, Mollie, yer hear? I can only teach you so much, the rest is instinct. You have to feel it deep in here,’ she said, thumping her plump hand against her left breast.

  I could take or leave it, mind. It seemed no end of trouble to go to. The hours I spent grating horseradish for horseradish sauce, it’s a wonder I have any knuckles at all left today!

  The meat was what I loved cooking the most. When you grow up poor with not much meat, to be able to then cook and eat it nearly every day is wonderful. Most of what we cooked came from the surrounding farms or what Mr Stocks had shot, so it was all what you might call local and we knew its provenance all right. In fact, we knew to the last square inch where everything that landed on our plates came from. Everything we ate was either grown in the soil of Norfolk, grazed off the soil of Norfolk or swam in the seas off Norfolk – none of this meat from Argentina or fruit from Africa. It makes no sense to me that. Why buy food that’s been flown from thousands of miles away when we have the most delicious produce right here on our doorstep? Daft, ain’t it!

  Back then we didn’t just move with the seasons, we ate with them too. I learnt to make the most wonderful meat dishes, dishes you just don’t see that often on menus nowadays. Game in aspic jelly, pheasant croquettes, loin of lamb, rabbit quenelles, partridge pie, stuffed quail, sweetbreads in aspic border, jugged hare with port, rabbit pudding and roasted saddle of mutton were all favourites. There was no end of techniques to learn and all the accompaniments, from stews to sauces, were of course made from scratch. I loved the smell of it all roasting and sizzling over the range.

  Mrs Jones’s eyes would light up when the gardeners brought the fruit and vegetables in straight from Mr Stocks’s large kitchen garden. Garden makes it sound small, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. The plot of land was out the back of the estate and was like stumbling across a secret, magical world. You followed a little lavender-lined path to a magnificent black wrought-iron gate with Mr Stocks’s initials, MS, interwoven in capitals in the ironwork. Once inside the walled garden, beds of the most incredible-looking vegetables spread out in immaculate rows and were lovingly tended to daily by a team of gardeners. Rows and rows of trees groaning with fruit lined the ancient walls of the garden. There was even another greenhouse at the far end to grow more exotic fruit like pineapples.

  Mr Stocks loved his fruit and vegetables and only those dug out of the ground or picked that morning were allowed to be served on his dinner plate.

  The head gardener was responsible for picking the fruit and vegetables that Mrs Jones told him she needed for that day’s menus. It was then delivered to her in big wicker baskets and placed on the kitchen table for her inspection. Fat asparagus, earthy new potatoes, all dug up just moments before and still covered in earth – they were as fresh as they come. She would brush off the dirt and insects as she inspected each item individually.

  ‘The vegetables that grow in the ground you cook in the pot with the lid on and you start them in cold water. Vegetables that grow on top of the land you put in boiling water and you don’t put the lid on,’ she said.

  It wasn’t just cooking techniques, either. By watching and observing Mrs Jones closely I was able to see how she planned a week’s worth of menus, what leftovers could be turned into something equally mouth-watering the next day and just how much or little to order to keep supplies topped up without being frivolous – a dirty word in the kitchens of Woodhall!

  She saved her best smiles for my uncle Albert, the delivery man from Harcourts the butcher. Goodness knows whether she was getting kickbacks from the butcher for choosing him as the meat supplier to Woodhall, but Albert always got a coffee, a slice of cake and a rare smile when he delivered our meat order. It went both ways, mind. We would sell him what game Mr Stocks couldn’t eat and in return we’d get the pick of the best beef, lamb, cutlets and sausages.

  Soon after we arrived at Woodhall, the new scullery maid, Phyllis, started. Our trembling new recruit was just the same age I was when I started, fourteen, and had absolutely no idea what she’d let herself in for. She got the same regimental rundown from Mrs Jones that I’d got and my heart went out to her. She was a timid little thing and looked like she might burst into tears at any minute or blow away in the wind when Mrs Jones hauled her up about something.

  As she scrubbed the floors and tackled the dirty dishes on her first morning I gave her a conspiratorial wink.

  ‘It does get easier,’ I smiled, making her a cup of coffee when we paused for elevensies. ‘And don’t mind Cook. She might seem like an ogre, but she’s not so bad underneath it all.’

  At the end of her first week she looked quite exhausted, poor girl, and she made the dreadful mistake of dropping one of the best gravy jugs.

  ‘Whatever is wrong with you, girl?’ screeched Mrs Jones as pieces of shattered porcelain skidded over the wooden floor. ‘That happens again and I’ll have to dock it out your wages. Watch what you’re doing or you won’t last long here. Just follow what Mollie does, all right?’

  Poor Phyllis. I found her later in our bedroom, sobbing her eyes out.

  ‘How do you do it?’ she said. ‘I can’t do a thing right and it’s such hard work. I’m dead on my feet.’ Her hands were stained dark black from raking down the coal fire. ‘I can’t seem to get this coal dust off my clumsy old hands neither and there’s nowhere to wash them,’ she sobbed in despair.

  I smiled gently, went downstairs and filled up a jug with warm water. Taking her hands in mine, I started to sponge off the worst of it.

  ‘You’ll get there, I promise,’ I said. ‘Don’t mind that old dragon downstairs. She mostly blows hot air, not fire.’

  Phyllis started to laugh.

  ‘That’s better,’ I said. ‘You’re ever so pretty when you smile. Tell you what, I’ve got my mother’s gramophone downstairs in the servants’ hall. I’ll teach you all the latest dance moves if you like. Someone very special taught me …’

  ‘Oh, would you?’ she beamed, all thoughts of the smashed gravy jug vanished. ‘I’d love to be like you one day, Mollie,’ she sighed.

  ‘Whatever for?’ I laughed.

  ‘Well, you have pretty clothes,’ she said, gesturing to the rail where Flo’s black dress hung, ‘and a handsome footman boyfriend.’

  I frowned. Seemed my relationship with Alan was a little more out in the open than I’d realized.

  Finally August and the much-anticipated holidays came round.

  Mr Stocks was only going to shoot grouse on one of his friend’s grand estates up in Scotland, but you’d think he were going to Outer Mongolia the way Mr Orchard fussed. As his valet, he was responsible for packing his trunk and making sure everything was just so.

  ‘A gentleman cannot turn up unprepared,’ he said snootily. ‘Irene, can you press Mr Stocks’s linen handkerchiefs ready for his journey? I need his velvet house slippers and the cashmere bath slippers too.’

  After that, he busied himself packing Mr Stocks’s tweed suits, his shooting jackets, dinner suits and bow ties for the evenings and mid-grey flannel suit to travel in. His best cigars were taken down from the shelf near the range and delicately packed away in an engraved silver cigar case.

  All I needed for the short journey back to Mother’s was my bike and an old canvas bag with a few summer clothes thrown in.

  It was arranged that Alan would stay behind in the servants’ quarters, but would cycle up every day and spend time with my family and me. I was ever so nervous of how my family would take him. He could be a bit mouthy, after all. On the bike ride there I did what I usually do when I’m nervous – talk.

  ‘I don’t know why Mr Stocks only goes to Scotland on his holiday,’ I said as we cycled. ‘I hear it just rains all the time up there. If I had his money I should go somewhere hot and exotic.’ I’d read all a
bout Spain in a copy of Mrs Jones’s Home Companion magazine once. ‘I should love to go to Spain,’ I sighed. ‘The warmth of the sun on your skin all year round, bull fights, oranges as big as yer head. They even have them palm trees like they have in the fancy hotels. One of these days I’m going to go to Spain and seek out my fortune.’

  I barely noticed that Alan had stopped cycling and was glaring after me.

  ‘Whatever’s wrong with you?’ I laughed, turning round.

  ‘I forbid it!’ he fumed, throwing his bike down on the ground. ‘When we’re married I’ll not have you go to Spain. You shall stay here and raise our babies, of course.’ He pressed his face right up against mine and his dark eyes narrowed.

  I stood rooted to the spot, stunned. By his reaction you’d have thought I’d said I was off to work in a bordello!

  ‘Spain,’ he scowled. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing?’

  A great sense of injustice settled in my heart and I felt the red mist descend. ‘How dare you?’ I screamed. ‘Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t dream? I have enough people telling me what to do at work without you trying to lord it over me. I warned you before, Alan. You don’t own me.’

  He moved as quick as a flash. Picking my bike up, he threw it into a ditch and exploded in fury. Before I even had a chance to speak, he marched up to me and gripped me so hard by my arms that I gasped. His eyes bulged in fury and flecks of spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted. His fists were bunched into tight balls round my wrists and twitched with rage.

  ‘Get off me now!’ I yelled. I fought against him with savage fury, but he had my arms locked down against my sides.

  ‘You’re flighty, Mollie Browne, and I won’t have it,’ he roared. ‘I tell you, I won’t have it.’

  Just as quickly as the rage exploded, it disappeared. He released my arms, sank back against a grass verge with his head in his hands and started to sob.

  It was like witnessing two men.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mollie,’ he wept. ‘I don’t mean to get cross with you. It’s just that I love you so. You do know how to get to me.’

  Hesitantly I sat down next to him and, even though my mind was spinning, I put my arm round him. He grabbed me and hugged me so tight I could barely breathe.

  Where had this come from? I was only talking about oranges and now this!

  ‘I just need security, what with my past and all. You will give me that, won’t you, Mollie? You understand?’

  I nodded miserably.

  ‘Good,’ he smiled. ‘You’ll marry me one day.’

  I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement so I said nothing.

  The silence was loaded. I just got a hankie out of my pocket and dried his eyes. Finally he got to his feet, sighed and pulled my bike out of the ditch. Gently, he helped me on to it and then picked up my bag.

  ‘I’ll take this,’ he said softly.

  As we cycled to my mother’s in silence, fear and doubt clawed at my heart. Alan was complicated – too complicated for my liking. You never knew what you were going to get with him. How could someone laugh and joke one minute, then be screaming blue murder the next? I thought longingly of George. He may have been a simple soul, but at least I knew where I was with him.

  I didn’t want to get married any more than I had wanted to work alongside that stuffy seamstress. Why did people always insist on owning you or putting you in your place? I was just sixteen, I wanted to travel the world, not get knocked up and locked up in Norfolk.

  He’d recovered himself by the time we got to my mother’s and was charm itself to her. She’d baked, of course, and my father and brother were sat round with their best clothes on. Mother had gone all out to make our cottage look as lovely as possible and all its inhabitants look respectable, and I loved her for it.

  ‘You have a lovely home here, Mrs Browne,’ Alan schmoozed, helping himself to a scone.

  ‘Mollie tells me you’re a footman,’ she said with a friendly smile. ‘How you finding that?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll make butler one day. Got to be able to keep Mollie when we’re married, haven’t I?’ He reached over and squeezed my hand before cramming the well-buttered scone into his mouth.

  Mother said nothing, but I could see the surprise register on her face. Alan would never have noticed it – just a flicker of an eyebrow and then it was gone. She and Father said nothing and were perfectly polite, but I could tell by the subtle nuances on their faces that they weren’t taken with him. Apart from anything else, my father was a traditionalist. It wasn’t done to talk about marriage like that over the table and he expected any suitor of his daughter to officially ask him for my hand in marriage.

  Alan seemed oblivious to their subtle disapproval, mind you. That and the shotgun by the fireplace.

  It was an awkward tea and I noticed with shock that my father had become more frail and tired, even in the three months that I’d been gone in London. His face was drawn and his eyes seemed lost in the grey pallor of his face. His chest rattled and halfway through tea he’d had to go outside, he were coughing that much. We sat in silence, all of us eating our scones and nervously drinking our tea as he coughed his guts up out there. The coughs seemed to come in great waves that exploded in his chest. The awful noise turned my heart over.

  ‘Gassed in Ypres,’ explained my mother to Alan apologetically.

  By the time he staggered back in, he looked as if he could keel over at any moment. Waving my mother away as she jumped to her feet, he sank back into his chair, clutching his chest.

  The rest of the tea passed with no more drama, but I felt quite exhausted by the end. When I mentioned Father’s health to Mother as we washed up together later, she looked just as weary.

  ‘Oh, let it be, Mollie, won’t you? He’s fine, just his chest playing him up. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘You’re all right – for money, I mean?’ I said. ‘Cos I can give you some of my wages.’

  Her face softened. ‘When did you get so grown up?’ she said fondly. ‘Bless you, Mollie, but please don’t worry about us. Your granny never sees us short. Besides,’ she said, flicking her eyes in the direction of Alan, who was sat beside the fire with his boots resting up against the fireguard, ‘you have your own worries now.’

  Alan glanced over at us, obviously trying to listen to what we were saying, but somehow I couldn’t seem to muster even a smile. For inside my stomach churned. Where was Flo when you needed her? I had made a dreadful, dreadful mistake. However would I get myself out of this one?

  What’s the saying? When the cat’s away, the mice will play!

  In Mr Stocks’s absence, the youngsters of the house and grounds – myself, Alan, George, John the hallboy, Irene the housemaid and Phyllis the new scullery maid – had got wind of a dance that was happening in Downham. Somehow I’d managed to sweet-talk Louis into driving us all there in the Daimler and now excitement was running at fever pitch.

  We all met outside Woodhall.

  ‘The boss must never find out about this,’ said Louis as he turned the key on the Daimler and it purred into life. ‘He’ll have my guts for garters.’

  ‘Oh, stop worrying,’ snapped Alan. ‘Who’ll tell him? Mr Orchard’s back in London and Mrs Jones is out visiting. No one will ever know. Besides, he’s back in a couple of days. We have to make the most of it.’

  ‘Come on then,’ sighed Louis. ‘Jump in.’

  I was wearing the gorgeous black dress Flo had made me and as I slid on to the plush leather seats of the Daimler, didn’t I feel the bee’s knees!

  ‘Wait till people see us pull up outside in this,’ I grinned.

  ‘You look lovely, Mollie,’ said George admiringly. ‘Just like a society girl.’

  Alan glared and put a hand on my knee.

  This dance was bigger than the dusty old village halls we usually went to. The dance at Downham, which I had longed to go to since I was thirteen, was in the town hall and was thronged with young p
eople.

  When we pushed our way inside, the whole room was doing the Palais Glide, all moving in time to the steps. It looked like a riot.

  ‘My favourite,’ I squealed. ‘Who’s coming to dance?’

  ‘You know I hate dancing,’ grumbled Alan.

  ‘I’ll dance with you,’ said Louis. ‘Shall we?’ He grinned, holding out an arm.

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ I giggled, taking his hand. ‘You lead the way.’

  Dances nowadays aren’t like dancing back then. With the exception of Alan, most people loved to dance – lived for it, in fact. With no television for entertainment, whiling away an evening at a dance hall was all the rage. Dressing up and going out to dance was the only entertainment we had, apart from the cinema. Everyone pushed the boat out and tried to look as smart as possible and everyone knew the steps. Well, you had to if you wanted to keep up.

  We may not have looked as glamorous as our American cousins, who led the way with their big luxury dance halls and jazz bands, but we could sure swing it with the best of them. With no constant flow of booze for people to get bombed out of their heads on, people didn’t get so drunk they couldn’t dance. It may have been becoming more acceptable for women to drink in clubs in London, but here in Norfolk it was tea or fruit juice all the way.

  Louis was just as light on his feet as he was at that first dance we went to and, wrapped up in his arms, I felt safe and warm. Somehow he managed to keep up a patter of chat while he danced and before long he had me in fits of giggles.

  Dancing with handsome Louis in my black satin dress, I felt like a Hollywood movie star.

  Why couldn’t Alan make me laugh like this?

  One dance turned to another, then another. All the while I was aware of a growing cloud of dark disapproval from the sideline. Every time I whizzed past him I just caught a glimpse of his face, frozen in anger. Well, who needed him anyway? Old stick-in-the-mud. I could dance if I wanted to. He wouldn’t stop my fun. Besides, it was all harmless. Louis was promised to another. We were only dancing.