Bibliograph

Servants, a downstairs history of Britain from the nineteenth century to modern times, Lucy Lethbridge

Type

Label

Servants, a downstairs history of Britain from the nineteenth century to modern times, Lucy Lethbridge

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages [327]-368) and index

Illustrations

platesillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Servants

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

829738431

Responsibility statement

Lucy Lethbridge

Sub title

a downstairs history of Britain from the nineteenth century to modern times

Summary

A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present

Table Of Contents

The symbolic pantomime. "A sort of silence and embarrassment" ; The dainty life ; "A seat in the hall" ; Centralising the egg yolks ; Popinjays and mob caps ; The desire for perfection ; "Some poor girl's got to go up and down, up and down-- " -- The sacred trust. The ideal village ; "Silent, obsequious, and omnipresent" ; Bowing and scraping -- The age of ambivalence. "Out of a cage" ; "Don't think your life will be any different to mine" "It was exploitation but it worked" ; "Tall, strong, healthy, and keen to work" ; The mechanical maid -- Outer show and inner life. "A vast machine that has forgotten how to stop working" ; "Bachelor establishments are notoriously comfortable" ; The question of the inner life ; "Do they really drink out of their saucers?' ; "Of alien origin" -- A new Jerusalem. "A new and useful life" ; The housewife militant ; "The change : it must have been terrible for them" ; The shape of things to come -- "We don't want them days again." "We've moved to the front" ; "I'd never done what I liked-- never in all my life" ; "We like it because the past is not so worrying as the news."

Classification