The Housekeeper's Tale - Grace Higgens's Story: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House

This is Grace Higgens’s story, one of the five stories that make up The Housekeeper’s Tale. This unique history tracks the housekeeper’s fortunes during a period of relentless social change – starting shortly after the end of World War One and retiring the same year that Upstairs, Downstairs made its televised debut. She enters haughtily, still in the prime of her youth at 16; she exits a mature figure in a nylon housecoat and a perm, down on arthritic knees with a scrubbing brush. That figure is Grace Higgens. Her employment spanned 51 years working for Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s family at their home Charleston. Mrs Higgens’s story maps the flux of 20th Century society and charts the demise of social mores that had been in place up until the Great War. Giving half a century of her life to service, all the while trying to forge a family for herself quartered in the attic above the renowned Bloomsbury set. This is a tale of the adventure of adolescence and growing up, but coming to terms with loss and the difficulties of love and loyalty. Working As A Housekeeper Was One Of The Most Prestigious Jobs A Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century Woman Could Want - And Also One Of The Toughest. A Far Cry From The Downton Abbey Fiction, The Real Life Mrs Hughes Was Up Against Capricious Mistresses, Low Pay, No Job Security And Gruelling Physical Labour. Until Now, Her Story Has Never Been Told. The Housekeeper's Tale Reveals The Personal Sacrifices, Bitter Disputes And Driving Ambition That Shaped These Women's Careers. Delving Into Secret Diaries, Unpublished Letters And The Neglected Service Archives Of Our Stately Homes, Tessa Boase Tells The Extraordinary Stories Of Five Working Women Who Ran Some Of Britain's Most Prominent Households. There Is Dorothy Doar, Regency Housekeeper For The Obscenely Wealthy 1st Duke And Duchess Of Sutherland At Trentham Hall, Staffordshire. There Is Sarah Wells, A Deaf And Elderly Victorian In Charge Of Uppark, West Sussex. Ellen Penketh Is Edwardian Cook-housekeeper At The Sociable But Impecunious Erddig Hall In The Welsh Borders. Hannah Mackenzie Runs Wrest Park In Bedfordshire - Britain's First Country-house War Hospital, Bankrolled By Playwright J. M. Barrie. And There Is Grace Higgens, Cook-housekeeper To The Bloomsbury Set At Charleston Farmhouse In East Sussex For Half A Century - An Era Defined By The Second World War. Revelatory, Gripping And Unexpectedly Poignant, The Housekeeper's Tale Champions The Invisible Women Who Ran The English Country House. Machine Generated Contents Note: Pt. 1 Dorothy Doar Of Trentham Hall -- Pt. 2 Sarah Wells Of Uppark -- Pt. 3 Ellen Penketh Of Erddig -- Pt. 4 Hannah Mackenzie Of Wrest Park -- Pt. 5 Grace Higgens Of Charleston. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want – and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.There is Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire. There is Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. Ellen Penketh is Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders. Hannah Mackenzie runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire – Britain's first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And there is Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century – an era defined by the Second World War.Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, The Housekeeper's Tale champions the invisible women who ran the English country house.Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE The story of The Housekeepers Tale follows the lives of five women to delve into the secret existence of these powerful yet invisible women who ran our great English country houses. From the 19th- to the mid 20th-century this was the most important professional job an uneducated woman could aspire to; the female equivalent of the butler. But we know very little about the women who filled these posts. In the fictional view, the housekeeper was invariably a spinster in black silk: cold, remote and calculating. But what of the real lives? Tessa Boase turns domestic detective to take the reader on a journey of investigation, unearthing secret diaries, bundles of letters and neglected archives from the service wings of great houses the housekeeping accounts, the doctors bills, the shopping lists, the character references. Mrs Doar, Mrs Wells, Mrs Penketh, Mrs Mackenzie and Mrs Higgens are forgotten women, but each had an intriguing personal story. Through meticulous research and imaginative reconstruction, their tales are told here for the first time. There is a pregnancy, a court case, a love affair, a scandal. These were real women, with real problems. But they were also determined, ambitious and single-minded. Whatever their era Victorian, Edwardian, the roaring Twenties, the liberated Sixties without these women the worlds that they kept in order would have stopped spinning altogether.