Thursday 15 February 2007

Great-great Aunts at Wharmton

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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

How perfectly lovely........
what wonderful times they must have been.

Jose said...

Well, Lavender, those times were not yet good for women. Running the household was their main absorbing task.

anticant said...

From what I gathered from my grandmother [her niece], "Aunt Gartside" ran her husband as well as the household! A very formidable lady. The family were rather wary of her temper.

Anonymous said...

Anticant ! - a woman after my own heart, apart from housework, that is.......
Jose..what a dreadful life ! - changed my mind, thank you !

anticant said...

They - some of them, anyway - did have servants, you know!

Anonymous said...

Now that would have a certain appeal......
French maids ?

Anonymous said...

A lady i knew in the Yorkshire Dales told me that she met her husband-to-be at her coming out ball in London.
On being told he was a 'Gentleman Farmer', she asked the meaning, to be told that gentlemen farmers provided servants for their wives.
And servants she had ! Amazing.

anticant said...

The servants were very convenient for the husbands - and the unmarried sons - too. Some of "bachelor Uncle Tom's" children were by his housekeeper. After all, the Pennines did get very snowed up in the wintertime, and there wasn't all that much else to do!

Anonymous said...

Upstairs, Downstairs.
Fascinating,but so wrong !
Why do I get the feeling that some of the servants were not always willing participants in that parlour game ?
Uncle Tom sounds rather rakish, so maybe his Housekeeper was very happy with her lot.
I hope so.

Jose said...

Times for women have always been difficult, with the rare exeptions as that one mentioned by Anticant. I remember not so long ago (40+ years) here a maid that was very proud a son she had was "by" the master of the house.

Anonymous said...

Castration,castration, castration.....

Anonymous said...

No castration in the burrow! Nor female circumcision neither, you will be relieved to hear, Madam.

This is a respectable house. Some of the callers are a tad disreputable, though. I am unlikely to become redundant in the foreseeable future.

By Order

Anonymous said...

Oh damn, I was just sharpening my 'instruments'.......

zola a social thing said...

Beadle : you got that right for a change.