Servants Stories

Step into the world of domestic service and discover what life was really like for these unsung heroines (and heroes) of society. Between 1800 and 1950, the role of servants changed dramatically but they remained the people without whom the upper and middle classes could not function. Through oral histories, diaries, newspaper reports and never before seen testimonies, domestic servants tell their stories, warts and all - Downton it isn't! * Revenge on a mistress with a box of beetles * The despair and loneliness of a 14 year old maid * The adventure of moving to London to go into service * An escape from an unhappy home life Find out about the 'servant problem' and how servants found work; how National Insurance began to improve their lot; the impact WW1 had on domestic service; and what was done to try to make the occupation appealing to a new generation. Praise for Michelle Higgs 'A delightful layman's guide for tourists from 2014, where you'll glean plenty of juicy detail to paint a more accurate picture of your ancestors' lives.' Family Tree (for A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England) 'An enjoyable and well-written social history, helpfully revealing more about what life would have been like 'below stairs'. Who Do You Think You Are? (for Tracing Your Servant Ancestors) 'Daily life is recounted with both historical detail and sympathy, aided by numerous first-person accounts.' Your Family Tree (for Life in the Victorian and Edwardian Workhouse) 'A lively text which should do much to open up the world of the Victorian prison to the general reader.' Who Do You Think You Are? (for Prison Life in Victorian England)

True accounts by domestic servants though a century and a half of British history revealing what their lives were really like—includes illustrations. Step into the world of domestic service and discover what life was really like for these unsung heroines (and heroes) of society. Between 1800 and 1950, the role of servants changed dramatically, but they remained the people without whom the upper and middle classes could not function. Through oral histories, diaries, newspaper reports, and never before seen testimonies, domestic servants tell their stories, warts and all—Downton it isn’t! You’ll read about revenge on a mistress with a box of beetles; the despair and loneliness of a fourteen-year-old maid; the adventure of moving to London to go into service; and an escape from an unhappy home life—as well as the “servant problem” and how servants found work; how National Insurance began to improve their lot; the impact World War I had on domestic service; and what was done to try to make the occupation appealing to a new generation. Praise for Michelle Higgs’ previous books “Enjoyable and well-written social history.” —Who Do You Think You Are? “Daily life is recounted with both historical detail and sympathy, aided by numerous first-person accounts.” —Your Family Tree

Spanning two centuries, an intricately woven collection of stories and novellas journeys across landscapes of yearning, awakening, loss, and unexpected discovery as the lives of extraordinary characters unfold in a borderland between science and passion.

‘Exemplary’ Ravish Kumar 'A wonderful selection’ Rana Safvi For generations, domestic servants in India have been subjected to neglect, apathy and cruelty. Though they are known nowadays as the domestic ‘help’, ‘aid’ or ‘staff’, often merely to meet the requirements of political correctness, their condition remains unchanged for the most part as the country’s privileged classes have failed to truly address the most pervasive inequalities in their households. In Lesser Lives, Nitin Sinha and Prabhat Kumar collect short fiction from the Hindi heartland that turns the gaze onto these continuing disparities. The eleven stories in the book, including Premchand’s ‘Maidservant’, Mahadevi Varma’s ‘Rama’, Saadat Hasan Manto’s ‘Blouse’, Amarkant’s ‘Bahadur’ and Shekhar Joshi’s ‘Dajyu’, offer both timeless classics and little-known literary gems, some of which have never been published in translation before.

"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."--www.Amazon.com.