Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [163]
There were some compensations: ‘When we used to land in Dublin, we would have to wait two hours in a square there to get a can of oil before we could set off for Lismore. The cook, Mrs Canning, loved picnics, so we always used to have to stop en route for one of her picnics; they were good, mind you.’93
As in so many great country houses with long-serving staff, there is considerable interconnection between the families of the estate and the house staff. Mr Coleman’s wife has also worked for the family; his brother-in-law is the butler and house manager at Lismore Castle; and one of his sons is the silver steward for the public side of Chatsworth. Alan Shimwell is related to two former comptrollers of the house. Mr Shimwell’s uncle Walter began as a bell boy in 1908, aged twelve, sitting by the bells to fetch the relevant visiting valet when called, and became the much-admired comptroller in 1921 at the young age of twenty-six and later clerk of works, overseeing the restoration of the house in the 1950s and ’60s. Jim Link is the son of a former head gardener who also worked for fifty years in the gardens and is brother-in-law to Mr Shimwell.94
How would they all describe working in a great country-house environment to those who have never experienced it? Mr Link, born and raised at Chatsworth, instantly replies: ‘It’s little community, we were brought up together.’ At eighteen he went off to do National Service: ‘You do have comradeship in the army, but when you came back, you really appreciated everything at home.
‘We were really a family and we looked up to the duke and duchess. We knew they were always behind us, and if we ever had any trouble you had a big ally there. They would bend over backwards to look after you; and you wanted to give them something in return for all that.’ Mr Shimwell adds: ‘The duke would always talk about how staff loyalty was very important: no argument.’ He valued the fact that his work was recognised: ‘When we went down to London, which made a long day, once we were back home, whatever time it was, there would always be a thank you and a goodnight. Always.’
Helen Marchant, the duchess’s long-term secretary, agrees with Mr Shimwell: ‘It was completely reciprocated. The duke was always trying to improve “the social wage”, with the pool, gym and golf course for people who worked on the house and estate; he was always trying to pay the staff back for the loyalty they showed. He was duke for such a long time, and many people started with him in the 1950s and 1960s. You have to remember the challenge of the 80 per cent death duties that they had to face.’ Mr Shimwell added: ‘We didn’t know whether we would have jobs at the end of it all, but the duke gave you confidence that he would pull through.’95 And they did.
As we come to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the privately owned country house is run more and more by people far removed from pre-war patterns and traditions. Country-house owners today expect to live in greater privacy than their parents and grandparents, but while they may cook and drive themselves, most of them still have to rely on some staff, such as secretaries, nannies, cleaners and especially gardeners, possibly bringing in regular agency staff for bigger social events.96
As we have seen, some of the bigger country houses, whilst also drawing on agency staff when necessary, are dependent on permanent teams of staff, calling on the services of their own estate departments where they continue to be maintained. Few, whether security men, drivers, cleaners or cooks, few are likely to live in the actual house, and all operate in a world that is in many ways different from that of their forebears. What is so surprising is that the complex world of domestic service has persisted so vigorously in the middle of the twentieth century and beyond, even if in rapidly changing guise.
The word servant may well have disappeared from everyday