Aprons and Silver Spoons: The heartwarming memoirs of a 1930s scullery maid by Mollie Moran Page B

was unfair. They were only considered
     bright because they had the money and time to further their education and make
     themselves more refined. I daresay I could have formed a whole load more opinions had I
     been given the opportunity to carry on at school or go to university, but by nature of
     birth I was born into the working class and that was that.
    My grandfather had owned the local village
     shop; Mr Stocks’s grandfather had bought this house in Cadogan Square,
     Woodhall in Norfolk and a number of other large country properties including Shibden
     Head brewery and Shibden Hall in Halifax. The Stocks family had made their money from
     coal-mining and, later, brewing. Mr Stocks, educated at Eton and then Cambridge, would
     never, ever have to sleep in a hut like my father or scavenge the countryside for
     pigeons for the pot.
    But what good would it do moaning about it?
     Besides, what could I, a fourteen-year-old scullery maid, do about it any case?
     Relegated to the basement and hidden away behind a green baize door, I was just there to
     make Mr Stocks’s and Captain Eric’s lives as comfortable aspossible. Thanks to a separate entrance and back stairs, they never
     actually had to even see me. I could lead a totally parallel existence to them. Myself
     and everyone else were there to anticipate his and Captain Eric’s every need.
     Meals appeared on tables, fires were miraculously lit, beds warmed, covers turned and
     front steps left gleaming. Not that I begrudged him. He was only living the life
     expected of the gentry.
    But times were changing outside on the
     rarefied streets of Kensington and Chelsea. A seismic shift of a magnitude that few of
     us could even imagine was on its way. Little did I, Mollie, sniffy Mr Orchard,
     cantankerous Mrs Jones or blue-blooded Mr Stocks upstairs, delicately picking at his
     kedgeree, know, but this little world of ours was about to be blown apart. Soon it
     wouldn’t matter if the front doorstep was sparkling or what staircase you
     used. Dark forces were brewing. Forces that were to irrevocably alter our way of life
     forever.
    British fascist supporters and the
     anti-fascist opposition were clashing across the East End and in the centre of London.
     Large numbers of Jews fleeing persecution elsewhere in Europe were arriving in the UK
     and were settling in London. Hitler had taken control of the German Workers’
     Party, which he renamed as the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party,
     and bestowed on himself the title of Führer. His speeches, in which he condemned Jews,
     Communists, democrats and capitalists, were arousing people’s injured national
     pride. By 1931 he was gaining in power and popularity. Even here in London a local Nazi
     group had been established and its membership was growing rapidly.
    These powerful events in Germany were to shape
     all our lives in ways none of us could have foreseen. But for now a new change, albeit
     on a smaller scale, was coming my way.
    My homesickness was cured in an instant
     with the arrival to Cadogan Square of a lovely lass by the name of Flo Wadlow.
     Friendships formed between women are some of the most magical on earth. They are
     lasting, meaningful and can sustain us through the longest hours. We all need a woman in
     our life, someone we can gossip long into the night with, spill out our hopes, dreams
     and ambitions to. Someone to giggle over first kisses with and confide our darkest fears
     in. And so it was with lovely Flo and myself.
    We had no idea back then, when she nervously
     pushed open the bedroom door, what a wonderful journey we would go on together. The
     friendship we formed when I was just a lowly scullery maid at Cadogan Square and she a
     kitchen maid has lasted eighty years. Who would have thought it? Eighty years! We still
     chat regularly on the phone and Flo, now a hundred years old, is planning a visit from
     Norfolk, where she still lives, to Bournemouth. I can’t wait.