Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [154]
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