Domestic Interiors Database

It was strange coming back to the big house after the R.A.C. I was married now and we had an estate cottage without inside water, a bath or electricity, although it was very pretty and we were very happy. At first, that is. Until Ladyship said that my wife must work in the big house. My wife didn't understand what it would mean. She came from Ilford and had never seen anything like it. She got worried and then she got a migraine. The doctor told her that she must leave her work at the big house because it was making her anxious and ill. I told Ladyship, who said, 'But she must come.' I told her what the doctor had said but she just drove to the cottage and told my wife, 'You must come back to the kitchen - do you understand? You must.' So that is why we went away. I felt sorry for my wife and for Ladyship; they had no way of knowing each other.
The big house helped me in my life and changed me. Being in private service has educated me. I can talk to anybody. There is one thing about Suffolk folk and that is they find talk terribly difficult. I don't. I have learned to talk. But working for Lordship made me a foreigner in the villager. Those who remain with their own calibre in the village stay in the village family. I belonged to the big-house family and it was hard to leave. I saw the last of the big house while it was self-supporting. Everything, milk, cream, butter, game, fish, flowers, chicory, endive, melons, they were all there behind the hedges. Whatever Lordship and Ladyship wished for, they asked for, and it was brought.