When I was working at Padworth College, now a
Sixth Form college for girls, I was talking one day
to one of the senior ladies who kept the college
bright and sparkling. We were discussing what it must
have been like to work in the house when the last
owner, whose family had lived there for over three
hundred years, was alive.
'You ought to ask my aunt,' she said. 'She was
Major Darby Griffith's housemaid and she has tales of
exactly what it was like.' So I did, and Mrs. Hilda
Hearn came to tea.
This very charming lady, with a very straight back
and an elegant hat, began to tell us how she had come
to work for 'the Major'. She had been brought up at
Ufton Court, where her father was head gardener. She
had been trained as a housemaid and her great
ambition was to work at Padworth House. The house was
a legend in her family because her grandfather had
been employed there as a groom for about forty years
and had told about the wonderful parties and the
titled people who came to stay.
One day a letter arrived at her home saying that
if she were still interested in working at the House,
would she present herself the following day - May 13th,
1922. The wages were twelve shillings a week with
full board and lodging, though she was not offered
the usual two shillings extra for personal laundry
because the Major considered the amount of tips she
would receive from the guests more than compensated.
The maids wore black dresses, white collar and
cuffs, a white apron and a white starched cap. Their
meals were in the servants hall which was presided
over by the cook-housekeeper, the very fierce Mrs.
Adkins. No one rose from the table until Mrs. Adkins
did. Her husband was the butler and took the head of
the table to carve. Hilda remembered that everyone
sat in order of seniority; the senior servants on
chairs on one side of the table while the lesser
brigade sat on a long wooden bench with their backs
to the window. There was often a large group of
visiting servants, who had come with their lady or
gentleman, who were also put up in the house on the
top floor. Hilda said that she arrived in time for a
Whitsun week-end party and there were so many females
on their side of the table that she was transferred
to the men's side, next to a chauffeur who
overwhelmed her with attention. 'I scarcely had to
look as though I needed something and it was placed
before me. I was a bit shy at first, but before the
week-end was over I was thoroughly enjoying it, and
from then, lost my shyness.'
When there were no parties, and the Major was
alone, 6.30 was sufficiently early for the staff to
rise and get all their cleaning duties done before
the breakfast bell rang. They had to clean the grates
and lay the fires, sweep and dust - no Hoovers then.
The Major did not approve of mops for dusting
polished floors so large areas had to be crawled over
and rubbed with a duster. After so much crawling,
Hilda developed 'housemaid's knee' and only then did
the Major allow mops.
When the house was full of guests, usually for
Ascot and other big social events, the maids got up
much earlier. Everything had to be ready downstairs
by eight o'clock. Then the housemaids had to tackle
the bedrooms, make the beds, clean bathrooms,
corridors and stairs. They had a break at eleven for
coffee and bread and cheese. If Mrs. Adkins appeared
wearing an old purple velvet hat the maids knew they
were in for trouble and couldn't do anything right.
If they wanted to go out they had to ask her
permission. Sometimes they risked slipping out to
meet a boyfriend from the village, but had to await a
signal from an upper window to tell them that the
coast was clear and they could slip safely back.
Preparations for a great ball meant a huge amount
of extra work. The Major went away so that the work
could go on unhindered. All the mattresses, pillows
and blankets from the bedrooms had to be carried down
the front stairs and placed in front of enormous
fires in the library and the servants hall. It was
heavy work, Hilda said, because the mattresses came
from large old-fashioned beds and were very unwieldy
to handle. She often got a fit of giggles and would
drop her end, which immediately came unrolled and was
far more difficult to roll up again than it had been
on the bed.
On the day the house guests arrived, they had to
spend the morning putting out soap and towels,
filling the washstand jugs with cold water and
putting out candles. This was because the electricity
was run off a turbine at a mill on the Kennet and 10.30
was the time the turbine was switched off - extended
to midnight when there was a party. Candles also had
to be ready on a table at the foot of the stairs in
case any of the visitors were suddenly plunged into
darkness before being able to reach their bedrooms.
Hilda said she was often in the servants hall having
left her candlestick in her bedroom when the lights
began to dim. By racing like mad up all the flights
of stairs and along the landing she could just get to
her bedroom, the last one on the landing, before the
light disappeared. The great inconvenience was in the
early morning, before the turbine started, trying to
clean big rooms by candle-light. It was even worse in
winter when the turbine became blocked with leaves
swept down on the river, as they had to rely entirely
on lamps and candles.
Very often, having risen at five o'clock, when
there was a house party, Hilda was not able to go to
bed until eleven, with only an hour or two for rest
in the afternoon before changing into black afternoon
dresses. One of her duties was to stand at the top of
the front stairs to conduct the ladies arriving to
their rooms, and if the guest had no personal maid
with her, to unpack for her and find out her needs
for the morning.
At seven o'clock a bell was rung to warn guests it
was time to dress for dinner. Then the maids had to
tidy the reception rooms. After the dinner gong
sounded they then did a tour of the bedrooms, folded
clothes, turned down the beds, laid out 'night
attire' and drew the curtains. Then they rushed
downstairs to wash up the best dinner service as the
courses came out of the dining room. The kitchen
staff were not allowed to touch it, in case of
chipped plates. When the coffee went in, they were
allowed to have their supper, usually with white wine.
The morning after a party meant a very early start
to set the rooms in order from the night before. If
it was the morning when a house party was leaving,
'things were chaotic. Used water to be taken from the
bedroom and the washstands left tidy. Sheets, pillow
slips and bath towels to be collected for the
laundry, and the beds covered with bedspreads. The
hand towels were left until the last minute in case
they were needed, then a rush downstairs with them
before the laundry baskets were closed, as they were
due to be collected by eleven o'clock. There were
bedroom bells to answer, sometimes to pack for a
lady, or to receive a tip and an expression of thanks.'
During one weekend, when Hilda went to turn down a
gentleman's bed, she found odd pieces of paper on his
dressing-table. She didn't look closely at them,
thinking they were rubbish, and threw them away. The
next morning there was a great panic, as the
gentleman could not find his return railway ticket.
It had been among the rubbish which Hilda had thrown
out. Two pieces of headed writing-paper were sent to
her, via the butler, one was a blank sheet and the
other a draft letter for her to copy and sign for the
visitor to show the railway official. She was given a
large tip but felt she hadn't deserved it.
Despite the very hard work, Hilda felt privileged
to work at Padworth House. She was a professional - a
well-trained housemaid, expert in many fields and
proud of her expertise. She wrote 'A housemaid, if
she is good at her job, should be able to memorise
the visitors' requirements from one season to the
next. For instance, does the lady take early morning
tea - or perhaps a glass of hot water and a piece of
fresh fruit? She may like breakfast in bed, and if
so, is it just a boiled egg, or a complete
breakfast?'
After tea, Hilda walked round the house with me,
which had been altered a lot from her day to
accommodate students and put in more bathrooms. She
had not been inside the house since she left to
marry, forty years before, and she was intrigued by
the changes and started to tell many amusing stories
as the rooms reminded her of people and events. 1
begged her to write down her memories for me and this
she did, in beautiful hand-writing. Subsequently we
published her memoirs beside the extract about the
Major by Richard Aldington and a splendid account of
the Head Gardener at Padworth House by his son,
Douglas Lawrence. It is a unique account of those
days, so extraordinarily different from today.
After that first visit, Hilda continued to come to
the College whenever there was a festive occasion
like the Christmas lunch or the Evening of Carols and
she said she much enjoyed coming and re-living some
of her memories. Despite the hard work and long
hours, Hilda told me she looked back at her time at
the house as one of the happiest of her life. Hilda
was a great lady. 1 am very grateful to have known
her and to have the chance to rescue this account of
life in a manor house in those days which might
otherwise have been lost.
Copies of the booklet are still available. Write
to Padworth College, near Reading, RG7 4NR. Price £2.50,
plus postage (26p).
