Free Up and Down Stairs by Jeremy Musson Page B

chauffeurs, a lady’s maid, a nurserymaid, a nanny, a butler, two footmen, and another two or three who could be called on when we were busy.
     
I learnt my job from three butlers: Mr Bryson; John Pollard, who was butler for fifteen years, both here and at Lismore; and Mr Edward Waterstone, the then dowager’s butler, who was with her for fifty years. He taught me a lot. There was another who had worked for the duke’s grandfather. They were all of the generation before the First World War, all the real McCoy, all very nice, and all getting on in years. They would help out at various parties at Chatsworth. They would tell me how to get on in general, how to look after things, what not to say and what not to do – that was very important. 89
     
    Alan Shimwell joined the Chatsworth staff in 1952: ‘I was eight years on the estate farms and then went into the gardens. My first job at Chatsworth was stooking corn, so that the water ran off and not into the stooks.’ He moved into driving almost by chance: ‘In 1968, the duchess asked whether I could go to Bolton Abbey with her because the chauffeur was off sick, and then I became her driver. In 1970 I started loading for her on shooting weekends and I went on doing it for thirty-three years. We went all over England, including royal places, such as Sandringham, or to Lord Gage on the south coast. There would be nine or ten guns and often the weather wouldbe terrible; you used to turn blue. I packed up driving five years ago and now look after the poultry, the duchess’s own, and do a bit of gardening.’ 90
     
    Jim Link recently retired after fifty years in the gardens. ‘When I first came, I looked after the forest nursery, then drove lorries, then went on to the demesne department. Then I helped in the gardens, under Denis Hopkins.’ Mr Link had grown up at Chatsworth: ‘My father was the head gardener here and I was brought up in a flat in the stable yard. I wanted an outdoor job and forestry sounded good. Father asked the head forester and that was that.’ 91
     
    As was so often the case, he was trained on the job:
     
I learnt everything about forestry from older people – at that time the people near retirement were looked after and the young got to do all the heavy work. We had a good foreman, Len Newton, and also Billy Bond. As you learnt how to do each thing, you were moved on to the next thing. In the demesne department we looked after roads and drains and trees; these were some of my best years – creating, planting. The old men really knew everything. Technology has changed a lot. I enjoyed my time in the garden, doing work that has a visible result.
     
The garden staff were probably closer to the house staff than some estate departments are because of the flowers we grew to decorate the house. My uncle Jim used to bring in orchids and flowers from the garden and greenhouses. The kitchen was supplied with vegetables too. Once lupins were wanted for the American ambassador’s room. The gardener took them up there, put them in the vases, and great heaps of greenfly fell off on the dressing table. There were greenfly everywhere. 92
     
    Both Mr Shimwell and Mr Coleman would follow the household from Chatsworth to the other family houses, Bolton Abbey and Lismore Castle, both in Ireland, a pattern that was typical of great households in previous centuries but is much less so now. Mr Shimwell recalls: ‘We would go to Bolton Abbey for 12 August for the grouse shooting and stay four weeks.’ Mr Coleman adds: ‘His Grace would go out for the beginning of the salmon fishing and then Her Grace would arrive in March for the Easter holidays. The cook wouldcome, Mrs Canning, and the housekeeper, Maud Barnes, a house-maid, and Mary Feeney, Her Grace’s sewing maid.’
     
    What was it like having to slot into another household? Mr Coleman says: ‘You were made to feel welcome. You were part of a family. We used to look forward to going. It was much more fun