Read Up and Down Stairs Online
Authors: Jeremy Musson
Is a butler is still something people look for?
A family who entertain a lot might want a butler, but he might be called a butler-houseman or house manager. Today, a butler is not so much about formal entertaining, but managing staff, sorting out the digital camera, iPod, Blackberry and house technology; liaising with contractors; and being the first port of call for bills and administration. This trend is much more on the management side, but there is still a demand for the very traditional ‘service’ butler. Some people have full-time drivers.
What sort of person would be a typical contemporary housekeeper?
Again, a kind of house manager, running the household, sorting out the laundry and making beds, who could cover for the butler. One could be on duty when the other is off, and vice versa. Housekeepers or house managers tend to have a grounding in some related skill, as a chef or a property manager; there is still some sense of working your way up through the ranks, perhaps having come from working on yachts, in ski chalets or in hotel management.
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Where are the many foreign couples drawn from who go into service? ‘There are certainly a number of Asians, Filipinos, Eastern Europeans and St Helenians.’ She too has found that it is not unusual to come across people, often local, who have worked in the same country house for thirty or forty years: ‘In the countryside, bigger estates would certainly be more likely to employ locals. Staff who are treated with respect and valued will stay a long time. Country houses do take a lot of looking after, especially if you have a house party; the laundry alone could take a week to sort out. No two houses are quite the same these days. Managing staff can be quite demanding.’
Is the word servant still used at all? ‘No, nobody really uses the word servant any more; people do use the word staff, although not everyone likes it. People still use the words butler and housekeeper,
although the word maid is used less and less. There are a number of other phrases used, such as confidential aide or personal aide, although some lines are blurred.’
Modern attitudes can vary enormously. ‘One of our housekeepers was being interviewed and asked whether there would be any cleaning involved. Her potential employer said, “no, you’re the housekeeper”. She asked the same question at another interview and the answer was, “of course, you’re the housekeeper”, which shows that people have different ideas about these job titles.’
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One of Miss Rough’s colleagues, Laura Hurrel, who is in her twenties, was recently on the other side of the fence:
I worked as a housekeeper for several families, travelling between London, country residences and abroad, including the owners of a traditional country estate. Things have certainly changed in terms of job titles and technology. There is less of an accepted structure. When I worked for the owners of a country house, I did so alongside the staff there, organising functions, and meeting and greeting.
Those going into housekeeping now tend to come from a background like nannying, hotels or corporate hospitality, and there are a lot of couples whose children have grown up and left home. It requires a lot of practical skills and what is required can vary widely.
What is it like working in another family’s home? ‘You do have to be careful not to get too involved in their lives, to know when not to listen and to leave people alone. You have to be aware of sensitivities and be discreet.’ It all sounds very familiar.
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In recent times, ‘conservation cleaning’ has taken a higher profile in the work of the National Trust when caring for and presenting country houses to the public, whether they are still occupied by a family or not. It is recognisably work that was once undertaken by the historic hierarchies of housemaids, footmen and housekeepers. According to Helen Lloyd, the head housekeeper for the National Trust, serious research has been done into the traditional housekeeping methods of country-house servants to understand best practice.
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‘In earlier periods, the expensive furniture of the day was incredibly valuable so it was looked after just as the most expensive technology
is cared for today: for instance, furniture was always supplied with case covers. The elaborate process of coaching household servants was for centuries predicated on a process of training, in which they would gradually assume responsibility for more and more precious objects. They really understood how to care for things, as we can see from the extraordinary range of brushes available for every possible purpose.’
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The National Trust has evolved a formula for the care of houses, dictated by the size of house, the density of furnishings and the number of visitors: ‘It is the activity of people that makes dust, be it a private family or the visitors.’ The National Trust’s recent
Manual of Housekeeping
gives a detailed description of the preferred staffing levels needed to care for a house and its contents. There would normally be a house manager, with curatorial training or a qualification; a house steward, with direct responsibility for the people doing the physical work, as well as managing the opening up and closing of the house; and an assistant, to provide cover seven days a week.
Then there are the ‘conservation assistants’: depending on the number of rooms and the density of furniture, anywhere between two and nine, but probably averaging around four. Most houses would also have various assistant cleaners who, although not specially trained, clean the offices and the other visitor facilities.
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It is all these people who make a critical difference in the care and presentation of beautiful objects and magnificent rooms. Whilst we admire their dedication today, we should also give full credit to those in centuries past whose working lives were spent in preserving and protecting these works of art and fine furnishings.
However, the privately owned and family-occupied country house must concern itself with more than conservation, although it is certainly essential. Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, is no exception to modern trends. Many observers have praised the Dowager Duchess’s role in the heroic revival of this great palace, both as an admired visitor attraction and as a family home.
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The funeral procession of the late duke on 11 May 2004 was attended by all those who worked in the house, garden, shops, restaurants and on the wider estate, dressed in the uniform of their roles,
and was widely reported in the national and local press. It was an iconic image of the private country-house community, still going strong in the twenty-first century although of a kind more typical of the largest traditional estates, on which this book has focused. Having inherited the house and extensive estates in 1950, the 11th Duke had to face 80 per cent death duties, which took many years to discharge, via the sale of land and the house’s treasures such as important artworks and rare books. The bill was eventually settled, so that Chatsworth could continue to be occupied by the descendants of its sixteenth-century builder. Today it is home to the 12th Duke and his family.
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In the story of its revival, a major factor is the two-way devotion between the Chatsworth staff and the Cavendish family. When I wrote to the duchess, asking about staffing at Chatsworth, she responded to my letter by sharing memories of those who had made it all possible, and inviting me to come to meet some of them. I visit on a crisp winter’s day, with sun and mist making that famous Derbyshire valley, with the dreamlike baroque palace at its heart, seem all the more beguiling – and the Devonshires’ joint achievement in keeping it together all the more inspiring. For the duchess, who has retired to a house in the beautifully sited estate village of Edensor, one element stands out in the story of those who have worked at Chatsworth. ‘Trust is essential. It’s got to be done on trust or it might as well not be done at all.’
Chatsworth, which the duchess made her life’s work for nearly half a century, is, as with many great houses, a complex organism, ‘like a museum and a grand hotel combined, but it has to be a home too, otherwise it is simply a museum’.
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She introduces me to three of her staff who had each worked for her for forty years or more. As she said: ‘They have been the absolute lynchpins of everything, men of such amazing calibre.’ These were Henry Coleman, who is still her butler today and was both butler and valet to the late duke since 1968; Alan Shimwell, her chauffeur and loader, also since 1968; and Jim Link, who started working for the estate in January 1950, in the forestry department, and went on to become head gardener.
I start by meeting the family’s long-term butler, a legend to the
many distinguished guests entertained by the duke and duchess. Henry Coleman began his working life at Chatsworth in March 1963:
I came as a footman, aged only sixteen, and after five years became butler. I had first started work at Lismore Castle in the forestry nursery, and when the family came to Lismore at Easter for their annual visit I was asked to take the logs around for the fires, with the odd man. The butler told me that there was a footman’s place going at Chatsworth and asked whether I was interested. Being the eldest of twelve children, all living at home, I jumped at the chance.
There was a substantial permanent staff in the house at the time, with ten or twelve indoor staff:
three in the kitchen, two in the pantry, two housekeepers, four daily women, two chauffeurs, a lady’s maid, a nurserymaid, a nanny, a butler, two footmen, and another two or three who could be called on when we were busy.
I learnt my job from three butlers: Mr Bryson; John Pollard, who was butler for fifteen years, both here and at Lismore; and Mr Edward Waterstone, the then dowager’s butler, who was with her for fifty years. He taught me a lot. There was another who had worked for the duke’s grandfather. They were all of the generation before the First World War, all the real McCoy, all very nice, and all getting on in years. They would help out at various parties at Chatsworth. They would tell me how to get on in general, how to look after things, what not to say and what not to do – that was very important.
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Alan Shimwell joined the Chatsworth staff in 1952: ‘I was eight years on the estate farms and then went into the gardens. My first job at Chatsworth was stooking corn, so that the water ran off and not into the stooks.’ He moved into driving almost by chance: ‘In 1968, the duchess asked whether I could go to Bolton Abbey with her because the chauffeur was off sick, and then I became her driver. In 1970 I started loading for her on shooting weekends and I went on doing it for thirty-three years. We went all over England, including royal places, such as Sandringham, or to Lord Gage on the south coast. There would be nine or ten guns and often the weather would
be terrible; you used to turn blue. I packed up driving five years ago and now look after the poultry, the duchess’s own, and do a bit of gardening.’
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Jim Link recently retired after fifty years in the gardens. ‘When I first came, I looked after the forest nursery, then drove lorries, then went on to the demesne department. Then I helped in the gardens, under Denis Hopkins.’ Mr Link had grown up at Chatsworth: ‘My father was the head gardener here and I was brought up in a flat in the stable yard. I wanted an outdoor job and forestry sounded good. Father asked the head forester and that was that.’
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As was so often the case, he was trained on the job:
I learnt everything about forestry from older people – at that time the people near retirement were looked after and the young got to do all the heavy work. We had a good foreman, Len Newton, and also Billy Bond. As you learnt how to do each thing, you were moved on to the next thing. In the demesne department we looked after roads and drains and trees; these were some of my best years – creating, planting. The old men really knew everything. Technology has changed a lot. I enjoyed my time in the garden, doing work that has a visible result.
The garden staff were probably closer to the house staff than some estate departments are because of the flowers we grew to decorate the house. My uncle Jim used to bring in orchids and flowers from the garden and greenhouses. The kitchen was supplied with vegetables too. Once lupins were wanted for the American ambassador’s room. The gardener took them up there, put them in the vases, and great heaps of greenfly fell off on the dressing table. There were greenfly everywhere.
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Both Mr Shimwell and Mr Coleman would follow the household from Chatsworth to the other family houses, Bolton Abbey and Lismore Castle, both in Ireland, a pattern that was typical of great households in previous centuries but is much less so now. Mr Shimwell recalls: ‘We would go to Bolton Abbey for 12 August for the grouse shooting and stay four weeks.’ Mr Coleman adds: ‘His Grace would go out for the beginning of the salmon fishing and then Her Grace would arrive in March for the Easter holidays. The cook would
come, Mrs Canning, and the housekeeper, Maud Barnes, a house-maid, and Mary Feeney, Her Grace’s sewing maid.’
What was it like having to slot into another household? Mr Coleman says: ‘You were made to feel welcome. You were part of a family. We used to look forward to going. It was much more fun when we started driving there. It was quite a business, travelling on the train with the staff and the luggage; I used to have to look after twenty-two pieces, which I had to get on and off the train when we changed at Manchester and Liverpool. We’d get on the boat to Dublin, and then it was back on another train to Limerick and then another to Lismore, still with all that luggage.’