Up and Down Stairs by Jeremy Musson Read Free Book Online Page A

over from a previous cook, ‘who worked with me and showed me what was what. She told me lots of short cuts and highlighted things in the recipe books that were family favourites.’ 53 There ‘was still a full-time housekeeper and butler, Michael, then’, and extra help would be brought in for shooting parties. When the shooting is let now, ‘the same family come every year and stay in the house. I cook for them too. This includes a good breakfast, a shoot lunch at the house, of two courses, cheese and celery, and then dinner of three courses, cheese, celery and coffee.’ 54
     
    Mrs Magee says: ‘I think sometimes it has been like two generations since I arrived. Sir Tatton had just taken over when I came, and is much more informal than his parents, who changed every night for dinner.’ The country-house tradition is maintained, however: ‘Food is served at table and guests help themselves, although some things like a first course or fruit fool can look attractive if served in individual portions. This is not the country-house tradition and the old butler Michael would say: “It’s not a café, you know!” The advantage is that guests take only what they like and there is no waste.’ 55
     
    Tea continues to be served in silver teapots by maids dressed in black and white. Mrs Magee loves to see everything prepared for a grand dinner party: ‘The housemaids clean the silver; everything comes out on the polished mahogany. The girls take a great pride in the presentation and arrange a display down the middle of the table. It can look absolutely wonderful, with the drapes drawn, and the fire lit.’
     
    Today Mrs Magee shares the cooking of shoot dinners with friend and colleague Hester (a specialist in desserts: ‘She’s marvellous, I don’t know how I would manage without her. She is in her thirties and very energetic’), who also runs the teashop for the visitors to the house. Opening houses to the public often brought new blood intocountry-house staffs, making them larger than they were in the immediate post-war years. 56
     
    Although Mrs Magee originally came from a different part of Yorkshire, the family of her husband Ken, whom she met at Sledmere, have a long connection to the Sledmere estate. Ken’s father was the farm bailiff, and he himself used to work at the famous Sledmere stud, founded in 1801. Now he works part-time in the gardens. They live today in a lodge to the estate.
     
    In the smaller staffs of the 1950s and 1960s, the stalwarts of country-house life were often a married couple, living in the house and providing devoted care, both to the building and to the family, who because of the demands of their other estates or commitments in London might themselves often be in residence for only a few months of the year. 57 One such couple, Alec and Annie Bagshaw, lived in and looked after Boughton House in Northamptonshire in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, working there for two successive Dukes of Buccleuch and their families. Not only was the panelling in the great hall made by Mr Bagshaw but he also catalogued the armoury and prepared it for display to the visiting public. Their daughter, Mrs Rosalinde Tebbut, offers a fascinating testimony to their lives.
     
My father was born in 1909, and started in the estates workshop in 1932. He was a journeyman before coming to Boughton; his grandfather was a carpenter attached to Boughton too. From 1942, my father was in the Royal Navy and when he came out in 1945 he was attached directly to Boughton House, helping to keep the house going.
     
When I grew up we lived in the village of Warkton. My mother worked at Boughton as a housemaid, because my father was already employed there as a carpenter. About the time I got married in 1956, Mrs Foy, the housekeeper, retired and my mother took over from her. Mrs Foy had been quite a traditional type, and the butler, Mr Batts, used to look after the dining room, the wine cellar, the silver and service. My