The popular TV series "Dounton Abbey" tells about the old good England, it seems that everything that is possible: on a par with the plot lines of the heroes-aristocrats there are included and the history of the servants.
So yes, it's not like this: the series of English servants is silent, simply because their description will spoil the picture of a funny, slightly shine, but almost idyllic harmony of the post-director epoch, in which every person is not averse to at least the maid. And damn with them, with the toilet bowls - servants and besides the guidance of shine on the plumber was, the interesting thing to do.Ironing and stitching newspapers
Any true English gentleman loved accuracy, and the newspapers who read the gentlemen, rushes, dirty paint and crawled. Therefore, the maids and Lakeev often demanded that those, pick up the newspapers in the morning, stroke them (the cast iron, heated on coals, it is not easy - you can accidentally burn paper) and smoothly stitched in the center of the manner of logs.
Polishing of parquets before the shifting of the knee cup
Progress went seven-year steps forward. Invented radio, telephone and monstascular vacuum cleaners. But the endless parquets were polished on corridors and houses of houses and estates are still manually.
If the staff of the servant was big, then this work performed the younger of the maids, a teenage girl. In order not to interfere with the owners, the girl got up darkened, took a candle, the tools of labor, went into the corridor and kneeling. So, on the knees, she scraped and rubbed every centimeter of the floor, without rejecting an hour, two and sometimes more, often with cold drooping weather (and in England, they avoided even the bedrooms, what to talk about corridors).
It is not surprising that one of the most frequent diseases whipping girls and women of simple origin was the purulent inflammation of the near-chosen mucous membrane, sometimes - with a displacement due to chronic kneeca cup. It was called the disease in everyday life: "Knee Maid".
Cleaning fireplaces to pain in the wrists
The evening during the fireplace is cozy, romantic and, in the cheese of English climate, simply the condition of survival. The fireplaces were treated altogether not always firewood, much more popular was coal - so practical. Clean then the fireplace grid is much less pleasant, the coal gave not just a nagar, but fat soot.
Of course, the lattice was smaller than the pipe, but still it was not pleasant to clean it. There were no modern cleaning products, it was necessary to simply work with hands, rub and scrape. Wild and stupid.
Despite the fact that such work implies a fairly significant burden on the wrists, the maids were performed, and not the servants of the male. If the hosts are grazing, then the boy was performed. This is the name of the post, and age. Even in the post-directorous era, a penny child labor was still actively used, and if we mentally return to the Victorian, will only remain to fall from horror in fainting, like a lady - but this is a completely different story.
Declection of handicoyev
If there was a large staff in the house, then the female half of the servants were led by a housekeeper, or a home-based. Among her duties was tracking the morality of the maids.
This included a lot: to follow, so that the maids did not speak to paint, and even more so dressing or having fun at least as fashionable as the hostess, so that they returned with the sober outguns, did not talk at the rear porch with young people, but the main thing Male sex in those moments when they stick to the maid - because otherwise the maids were too quickly pregnant and had to throw out these and look for new ones.
It was impossible to oppose the bailiffs and the dohadow, so the housekeeper was not easy to rush with such a person, as if nothing notes, and urgently find a matter or for the maid, or for the owner on the other side of the house. On the one hand, the maids were protected, on the other, if the housekeeper did not move the owner on time, all the consequences of the girl loosened, and all the reproaches were also given to her.
Cleaning steps chalk
In the city house, the steps of the porch should have been around the clock. In England. Where to slush is the natural state of the streets at any time of the year. To achieve the desired effect, the maids were constantly ran to graze the steps with chalk. As now they say that the toilet is the face of the hostess, so for the British of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the snow-white steps of the porch were. If the next approach was kept for them for longer than 15 minutes, thunder and zipper began to grow over the maid.
Digger and Fish
When they are shown at the work of the cook, they look well - cutting vegetables and grown steaks. Undoubtedly, it is not necessary to shove every trifle in the frame, but because we ourselves do not like this for a long time, then all the time we forget that cooking in the tenth-twenties included cleaning and giving off the fish and bought fish and game .
That is, they were cut off their heads, plucked out of the pen or ducklings from scales, opened the stomachs and carefully cleaned the abdominal cavity from the bloody and unappiciously smelling the desira. Completely non-device and also unpleasant work.
Repairing linen
During the First World War, and immediately after her, many families were in the position when there were objects of life - left with a pre-war of good life, but the menu accounted for a few, from laundry services to refuse, and finally it was impossible to afford to change Lingerie and clothing as needed.
If earlier torn pantalonians or thrown out, or straighten with laundry, now this somewhat embarrassing duty had to take the maid into their hands. Agreement to the main job. I wonder what is like to look in the face of other people's people, knowing exactly where they are driven on their cowards and what seam they are sewn?
Care for jewels
In the cinema, the servants are just doing that they are taking a table silver. It's ineffable in fact, science often coped with the butler (there must be something to do something, except with an impermeable face of home to stagger). But the decoration of the hostess demanded a subtle approach, it was necessary to be able to handle each type of metal and stone, not counting the fact that they were all in the curls, and when polished was required, it complicated the work. They were engaged in decorations, naturally, Camerics, that is, personal maids.
Homemade canned
And rolling in the season of endless cans with pickles, jams and marinades, and further tracking of their fate (no matter how old, and some of the jokes do not torment, burst and squeeze the surrounding fragments) entered the duties of housekeeping and / or cook.
Do you remember that madness that mother with a grandmother sat in your childhood? And now imagine the scale of this madness, when the pickles are trying to provide a whole estate. There is nothing super bauble in canned food, but they do not show the cinema because they did not write in the literature. And in the literature did not write because the servants became visible only when they directly served the owners.
Generally too visible servant - a bad servant. And too invisible causes the thoughts that the house restores the purity by itself, and what these servants are distinguished from the salary and the request of the oculos, it is generally unclear.
Carrying weights
Usually on the screen we see the lacquer carrying the shopping hostess. But in general, women most often worn. Kitchers with assistants dragged baskets with products from the market, and the maids introduced into the dining room on trays not only chairs and coffeemen, but also much more abundant lunches.
To run with a tray five times there was a neomalpho - the owners annoyed, it was necessary to put everything for one or two sites, so the tray was loaded very and very weighty. The maid had to be strong hands - although they became more likely. Oh, these unknown vessels!
big washing
Oh, yes, even rubbing floors could not be compared with this weekly affiliate of hell on Earth. As we remember, during the war and after it, many families, even prosperous, could no longer afford to give a dirty underwear in the laundry, so the hostesses, cooks, housekeepers and the maids had to remember how the washing of bed and underwear was organized on All family.
Forget about washing machines and miracle powders. Curious soap, boiling water, washing board and a thousand home tools for stains of one type or another. Feative you to confuse and try to reduce the ink kerosene, and the paint with milk. The stains will simply be twice as much, and then you and the fabric will spoil on precious clothes.
From the morning and until late in the evening in the kitchen there was a terrible heat and red maiden girls and women ran. In order for the lingerie desired, the lingerie seemed to be shining white and seemed new, he was washed with blue, starchy (we will not describe the process, just believe that it was a process) and thoroughly smoothed a terrible iron with coals, the temperature on which was in any way Do not adjust - only at random.
White collars from blouses or dresses often were completely disappeared - otherwise the clothes would have merged on them - they were erased and covered separately and then they sewed again. And this endless process of ramkanya underwear with hands and the washing board, and the beanie with the vendsa is boiling water, then cold water for rinsing, and hanging on kilometers of rods ...
There was no day a week worse than the day of the big washing. And yes, guess who did all this heavy physically work. Certainly not butler and lackey. They were no time: they rubbed the forks.
Illustrations: Images from the films "Gosford Park", "On the outcome of the day" and the series "Abbey Dounton"