Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid (13 page)

Homosexual men had resorted to meeting in
secret, at clubs, bars and houses throughout London, and a whole underground subculture
had emerged. Looking back, that could have explained Mr Orchard’s twitchy,
repressed behaviour. He was probably terrified of being arrested, poor fella. As I said,
he always kept his private life scrupulously private.

But all he was to me was just a buttoned-up
old butler, hell bent on destroying my fun.

After his dressing-down, Mrs Jones glowered
from over the top of her basin.

‘Oh, don’t carry on so,
Mollie. Now, get out from under my feet and pop to Coopers and get me some more sugar.
We’re running low.’ Coopers was a major store opposite Harrods that
sold groceries and sundries and was always a place you could nip to, to top up your
supplies.

This was music to my ears. I loved popping
out to the shops more than anything. Any chance to get away from the house and Mr
Orchard’s oppressive gaze and see a bit of London was a tonic.

Outside in the spring sunshine I walked out
of Cadogan Square and, humming to myself, I headed out on to Sloane Street and then
hooked a left on to Brompton Road and Harrods.

I’ve heard of some scullery maids
who were ashamed to wear their uniforms outside, for fear of being seen as a skivvy. Not
me! I was proud of it and I wore my apron like a badge of honour. I had a job and was
sending money home to my mother. That meant I was respectable. Why on earth some people
would lie about their jobs I’ll never know, but I know plenty did, whether it
was because they worried they wouldn’t get a boyfriend if a fella thought they
worked all the hours sent, or just because they thought they’d be looked down
on, I don’t know. I just know I was pleased to be wearing this uniform. What
did it matter? I was earning good money as a scullery maid in Knightsbridge.

What a rarefied place this area was back in
the early 1930s. There was hardly any traffic on the road and what cars there were were
Daimlers and Rolls-Royces. The
place was crawling with gentry. Ladies
and gentlemen paraded through the numerous green squares. These folks were the crème de
la crème of society.

‘You are lucky to be here, Mollie
Browne,’ I said to myself as I walked with purpose up Brompton Road.

The sun glinted off the black railings and
it felt like all London society was out this season, waiting to be seen. By day it was
like a scene from
Mary Poppins
. But by night, who knew what went on in the big
ballrooms of the huge London hotels and nightclubs?

I paused and watched as a number of
glamorous women swept past me out of a large house and disappeared into the back of a
Daimler. They were dressed beautifully in long black silky backless dresses and not a
hair on their heads was out of place. A footman wearing white gloves held the back door
open for them. They walked like pedigree cats slinking along the pavement and they gave
off a nonchalant air. There wasn’t a trace of fat on them, they were stick
thin. Not like me. I was rounded and curvy with an hourglass figure.

These women didn’t look like
demure debs off to be presented at court. They looked like racy actresses off to dance
to big bands and drink champagne cocktails. As a young scullery maid I daresay I was
invisible to them, but all these sights and sounds made lasting impressions on me.

After purchasing my sugar I nipped round the
back of Harrods to visit the errand boys. The Trevor Square entrance on the other side
of the Brompton Road was where all the deliveries left from and it was teeming with
bikes and vans piled sky high with parcels and packages.
They
didn’t have to cross the road to reach Harrods and stock up. Oh no. There was
a tunnel that went under the Brompton Road where they could pass unobtrusively and
unseen. The goods were dispatched from Harrods via a freight lift operated by a driver
who had to line up the lift with each floor. Once in the basement they were taken in
small trains that pulled the goods in cages along the tunnel to the other side of the
road. The gentry didn’t want to be faced with grubby delivery boys, after all!
The tunnel has been there ever since the present building was completed and apparently
is still in use today. Lifts and escalators were for the Harrods customers; the back
stairs and tunnel were for its employees.

I loved the idea of a secret tunnel, a whole
other world beavering away underground, just like we did at Cadogan Square. In fact,
London was pulsing with secret, shadowy, unseen worlds. With servants scurrying up
hidden stairways, errand boys in underground tunnels and homosexuals meeting in secret
clubs, the smart London I had just walked through was only the tip of the iceberg – the
presentable face of the 1930s.

Just then I spotted Billy the errand boy
pushing his bike out of the delivery bay.

‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he
grinned. ‘Come back to see me? Knew you would.’

Some intensive flirting followed, with Billy
trying to persuade me to go out with him, before I realized the time. Oh crumbs. Mrs
Jones would be wondering where her sugar was.

‘Best go,’ I shrieked.
Fortunately all those years running wild in the Norfolk fields meant I was a good little
runner
and soon I was pounding up Sloane Street, my apron flapping
behind me and the wind ruffling my mop cap nearly clean off my head.

Rich and spicy smells had filled the
kitchen. Luckily Mrs Jones hadn’t noticed I was late as she was too busy
serving up the boss’s lunch. On dinner-party days they would serve a light
lunch of cold meat and salad.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur
as everyone focused on his or her own tasks. Finally, by seven thirty p.m., everything
was ready to go up. The sound of the silver gong chiming in the hallway signalled that
the guests would be finishing their cocktails and moving to the dining room.

Shortly after, the service bell rang in the
passage. It was all systems go. The gentry were ready to eat.

The piping hot consommé was poured into a
vast tureen that had been warming on the rack above the stove and the light-as-air
soufflés were rising gently. The salmon was really something to behold. It was the
little touches that made it special. Mrs Jones served it whole on a silver platter with
a head and tail made from puff pastry. The fish had been glazed with aspic and was as
pink as candy-floss. Flo had cut little pieces of cucumber into the shapes of diamonds
and hearts and it was garnished with parsley, quarters of egg, lettuce and carved
tomatoes. It looked fit for a king.

The chicken was no less impressive. It had
been poached and then brushed with a thin layer of aspic jelly until it glistened and
was served with fat asparagus stalks, dripping with melted butter. Flo’s
duchesse potatoes,
which she had spent ages mashing and passing
through a sieve this morning, had been moulded into diamond-shaped pieces and baked in
the range before being brushed with warm butter and garnished with finely chopped
parsley. Served up on silver trays with white doilies and decorated with more aspic dots
and parsley, it looked a treat.

Nothing left that kitchen without a white
doily and a parsley garnish. Old habits die hard – I still serve up food like that.

My mouth weren’t half watering.
Imagine that being served up to you by a butler and footman in white gloves.
You’d think you were the bee’s knees, wouldn’t you?

The raspberry mousse looked as light as
gossamer, served up next to slivers of succulent white peaches. ‘By!
It’d melt in your mouth, wouldn’t it?’ Alan winked, when
he noticed me gazing lustfully at the pudding. Then he was gone, taking the silver
platters through to the little hatch next to the kitchen, where it would go up in a lift
to the next floor. Mr Orchard would be ready and waiting to take the food into the
dining room on a big butler’s tray. He and Alan would then wait hand and foot
on the party for the rest of the night. Every two minutes that bell seemed to tinkle and
off they would scurry to tend to their masters’ needs.

You never knew how the food went down.
Mostly I’m sure it was appreciated by Mrs Lavinia, Mr Stocks and their
cronies, as it always came back for the most part eaten. I wondered if they knew the
effort and hard work that went into creating that meal, or how my father would have
killed for just one mouthful of that delicate chicken dish.

After dinner service was over, Mrs Jones,
quite overcome with exhaustion, retired to her bedroom, and me and Flo, still on a high,
played cards on the kitchen table.

Finally, the dinner party dispersed and Alan
came downstairs.

‘That’s that over with
then. Seen ’em all off into their taxis and cars,’ he said.
‘Mrs Lavinia’s real pretty,’ he added with a sigh, shaking
his head. Then he fixed his penetrating gaze on me. But not as pretty as you,
Mollie,’ he said.

I flushed red. ‘Get away with
you,’ I giggled, flicking a playing card at him.

But that night, as Flo and I washed and
changed into our nighties, she couldn’t help but tease me.

‘I reckon that footman has a thing
for you, Mollie,’ she said.

‘Behave,’ I said.
‘Besides, I couldn’t court him. Mrs Jones says dating other
staff’s not allowed, is it? I couldn’t …’

Could I?

My mind drifted back to my carefree
childhood. Since when did I give a fig for things like petty rules? I could date a
footman if I wanted and it would take more than a cantankerous old cook to stop me.

‘Well, we’re back off to
the country soon,’ said Flo. Her voice was rich with mischief. ‘You
know all that fresh country air makes a man frisky,’ she teased.

I giggled.

‘Besides, plenty of haystacks to
hide behind and hedgerows to lean on,’ she snorted.

‘You wicked thing,’ I
cackled, hurling my pillow at her.

‘Hah,’ she laughed,
hurling it back. Soon we were
giggling so much, helpless tears of
laughter streamed down our faces.

‘Sssh,’ hushed Mrs Jones
crossly through the wall.

As we settled down to sleep, images of
Alan’s and Louis’s faces danced through my mind and a shiver of
excitement tingled through my body.

Countryside, here we come!

A heavy silence fell over Cadogan Square
that night, each of us closeted away in our own allocated space. Mrs Jones snored softly
next door. Mr Stocks sat downstairs enveloped in a cloud of expensive cigar smoke and
memories of yesterday. Mr Orchard was probably still folding his clothes away just so,
his head preoccupied with thoughts of his master. Goodness knows what lusty dreams
chased through Alan’s mind and, upstairs, in the dark of the attic, lay two
young girls, dreaming of tomorrow and a world of adventures just waiting to be had …

Tips from a 1930s Kitchen
…
SOUP TO SCRUB FLOORS ON

Consommé may not be to everyone’s taste, so why not try this instead? I love this recipe for chicken, vegetable and pearl barley broth. It’s cheap, healthy and has kept me going a few years.

Whole chicken

3 pints (1.7 litres) water

2 cloves garlic

1 carrot

1 onion

1 stick celery

Finely chopped parsley and tarragon too if you like the flavour

Good handful of pearl barley

Place the chicken in a stewpot with the water, garlic, vegetables and herbs and simmer gently for two hours. Remove the chicken and strain the liquor.

Now add a good handful of pearl barley to the broth and simmer until the pearl barley is cooked and the broth has thickened. Dice the chicken breast off the bird and add to the broth along with salt, pepper, more parsley and a dash of lemon. Serve piping hot with hot buttered toast.

HOUSEHOLD TIP

To stop your kettle from furring, keep a small stone marble inside the kettle.

Dearest tie of young connections,

Love’s first snow-drop, virgin
kiss.

Robert Burns

The stench was like nothing on earth – wave
upon wave of a putrid, fetid odour so foul it filled the small, dark room like a cloud.
It was as pungent and sweet as a rotten melon. A curious mix of sweet and sulphur that
can only come from congealed blood and decomposing flesh.

The vapours crept into my nostrils and
drifted down into my tummy, whereupon I was seized with an instant urge to be sick.

Come on, Mollie. Get a grip. You can do this.

Taking a knife, I gripped the head of the
creature and, before I could chicken out, sliced a deep hole between its legs. Plunging
my hand into the cavity I closed my eyes as soft, rotting intestines squelched between
my fingers.

‘Eurgh!’ I squealed.
‘That is revolting.’

As I whipped my trembling hand out, the
entire contents of the bird’s insides – entrails, intestines and maggots –
slithered out and landed with a soft slapping noise on to the floor
of the game room. The rancid smell that rose up to meet me was so sharp I gagged and ran
screaming from the room.