Posted by Robert Hill on 08/25/00 from 129.11.153.35 via proxy proxy1.leeds.ac.uk:
In Reply to: PM-Beckfoot servants. posted by Bruce A Clarke on August 25, 2000 at 14:17:53:
Though a housemaid is indeed mentioned in Swallowdale, I think it's fairly
clear that in PM nobody is permanently employed at Beckfoot except Cook.
Somebody (such as, for example, Billy Lewthwaite - have I got his name
right? the one who isn't a policemen but acts a a chauffeur) might have
been employed on an occasional basis to do some of the things you mention,
though Captain Flint probably did some of them when available.
Mrs Blackett could have done some of them herself sometimes.
I suppose the kitchen range may possibly have burned coal.
The trellis may have been supplied and put up by a specialist firm,
though undoubtedly there will have been far fewer firms then than
now in the "home improvements" business. Maybe a blacksmith whose
traditional business was being encroached on by mechanisation!