Posted by John Wilson on September 14, 2000 at 13:38:36 from wakefield-cacheflow.itnet.co.nz:
In Reply to: Re: PM-Beckfoot servants. posted by Bruce A Clarke on September 12, 2000 at 09:00:23:
Mrs Braithwaite the cook at Beckfoot is probably the only servant who lives in, and the only other servant we hear of is a housemaid in SD (ch 27). When there were jobs to do around the house, they would probably call on Billy. The GA “got a man in” for her problem bell at Harrogate (she knows what men are for). Beckfoot does seem large to have only two daily servants. It has a phone (unlike farmers like the Tysons, who can’t ring Col Jolys about the fire), but apparently no electric light, only lamps and candles. Perhaps they are hard-up.
Billy Lewthwaite is I think the brother not the son of Sammy the policeman. He sometimes drove Rattletrap eg for the GA (wearing an old yachting cap as a chauffeur’s cap), but usually Jim or Molly (Mary?) drove Rattletrap themselves. The carriage (not a trap, which has two wheels) and the launch in SD (ch 12 & 20) are apparently both driven by Jim. The black carriage horse would need daily attention, more work for someone!
The GA bought Jim and Molly up, but if “father (ie Bob) rescued them” to go up the Matterhorn as Nancy says on the summit of Kanchenjunga, they would still have had to be back on time for meals. And Molly would have to be chaperoned by her brother Jim; the GA would not let Bob and Molly go off on their own.
The GA as a Turner must be Jim & Molly’s father’s sister. Beckfoot may have been entailed to the eldest son, as these country houses could not be split up between all the children of the owner. But with Jim gallivanting off to foreign climes and Molly widowed and needing a home, the house was used by Molly and the Amazons.