Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid by Mollie Moran Page B

climbing trees.
     

     
    Number 24 Cadogan Square,
     Knightsbridge, Mr Stocks’s London house. We’d come up here every
     year for the London season.
    I clambered out of the car and
     started to ascend the six white steps that led up to the mansion.
    ‘Ahem,’ coughed Mr
     Thornton. ‘This way.’ With that,he gestured to the
     ‘area’ steps that led downstairs to the basement.
     ‘We’re downstairs.’
    ‘Of course,’ I
     blustered. How could I have been so stupid?
    If London’s Knightsbridge seemed
     quiet and tranquil outside and upstairs, well, downstairs it was certainly a different
     story. In a way the house was like a swan – all serene up above and effortlessly gliding
     along, while down below there was frantic activity and constant motion to keep it
     staying afloat.
    A long hall ran the length of the basement
     of the house with rooms opening off it. ‘Housekeeper’s sitting room,
     servants’ halls, toilet and butler’s bedroom,’ said Mr
     Thornton, gesturing to the rooms that ran off to the right. ‘This side is the
     footman and hallboy’s bedroom. Out of bounds to you,’ he muttered.
     ‘Hallboys, footmen and butlers sleep downstairs and kitchen maids, cooks and
     housemaids sleep upstairs.’
    On the walls of the passage ran a long line
     of brass bells with room names above them.
    ‘Service bells,’ he
     explained. ‘You won’t need to bother much with them.
     They’re for the butler, footman and housemaids.’
    As we clattered up the echoey corridor and
     into a vast kitchen at the end, Mr Thornton called out: ‘New girl’s
     here, Mrs Jones!’
    A short, dumpy woman was drying her pudgy
     hands on her white apron. She had flour smeared on her forehead and a hot flush had
     spread over her from her morning’s efforts. Her little dark eyes peered out
     suspiciously from her red face as she sized me up.
    ‘You’ll do,’ she
     said in a strong Welsh accent. ‘Right, I’ve just finished getting
     the boss’s lunch ready. We sit down to ours now and when we’ve
     finished I’ll talk you through the rules, all right?’
    ‘All right,’ I nodded
     eagerly. I wanted this woman to like me.
    In the servants’ hall everyone sat
     down to eat. No one introduced me to anyone and I hadn’t the faintest clue who
     anyone was and where I was in the pecking order, though I guessed as I was easily the
     youngest person in the room, it would be me at the bottom. Trying to blend in, I took a
     seat at the end of the long wooden table.
    A young girl, a bit older than me, started
     bringing in trays piled high with food. And what a feast. After my long journey my
     stomach was grumbling. Sunday lunch in this household was obviously a big deal.
    I waited for everyone else to finish
     serving, then helped myself.
    Dishes were piled high with piping hot
     crispy roast potatoes, hunks of smooth brown Yorkshire puddings and steaming vats of
     peas and carrots glistening in butter. The centrepiece was a giant sirloin of beef, cut
     so thinly the rare pink beef looked like it might melt in your mouth. Mrs Jones had
     quickly cast aside the paper doily and fancifully cut carrot and parsley it had been
     garnished with for Mr Stocks’s benefit and the two eldest members of the
     household had helped themselves first.
    A young, good-looking lad opposite me must
     have clocked my expression, because he laughed. ‘You’ll not starve
     in this house,’ he said with a grin. ‘Always beef on aSunday, never any different. The boss has two slices off the fillet
     then he sends down the sirloin to us.’
    Without saying a word, I loaded my plate up,
     smothered it all in a lake of piping hot gravy and tucked in.
    If it looked mouth-watering, it tasted
     beyond heaven. I’d never tasted meat quite like it afore. The meat was so
     tender it melted like ice cream in your mouth and the sizzling hot potatoes were fluffy
     and light as clouds, but with a wonderful chewy skin from being roasted in duck