‘I felt like I was getting somewhere that evening. Sitting by the window sipping my tea and eating lovely iced buns, I’d come such a long way from Hoxton . . .’
‘A wonderful trip down memory lane. I found the odd tear roll down my cheek . . . and there are moments of laughter throughout the book too, smiles and sighs, and even the odd grunt of disgust!’ – READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Born in 1910, Rose Plummer grew up in an East End slum, where she and fought an unending battle with hunger and squalor.
At the age of fifteen, Rose started work as a live-in maid, and despite the poverty of her childhood, nothing could have prepared her for the long hours, the backbreaking work and the harshness of a world in which servants were treated as if they were less than human.
But however difficult life became, Rose found something to laugh about, and her remarkable spirit and gift for friendship shines through in her memories of a now-vanished world.
‘A wonderful trip down memory lane. I found the odd tear roll down my cheek . . . and there are moments of laughter throughout the book too, smiles and sighs, and even the odd grunt of disgust!’ – READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Born in 1910, Rose Plummer grew up in an East End slum, where she and fought an unending battle with hunger and squalor.
At the age of fifteen, Rose started work as a live-in maid, and despite the poverty of her childhood, nothing could have prepared her for the long hours, the backbreaking work and the harshness of a world in which servants were treated as if they were less than human.
But however difficult life became, Rose found something to laugh about, and her remarkable spirit and gift for friendship shines through in her memories of a now-vanished world.
Reviews
Praise for the Lives of Servants
Reading this fascinating book is likely to unleash anyone's inner Bolshevik...!
...a fascinating portrait of the drudgery and servility of a domestic's life.
...captures the subtelties of the English class system to an extraordinary degree.
If the Brothers Grimm had ended Cinderella where she was being forced to clean the house by her stepsisters, they might have accidentally been writing Rose Plummer's biography. The maid's story makes for harsh, heartbreaking, fascinating reading.
