Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey

Fans of Downton Abbey, the miniseries on PBS that hooked us last year, can now continue watching on Sunday evenings to see how World War II has affected the rich aristocrats and their servants.  Margaret Powell lived the life of a servant and has written a revealing book of her experiences in the homes of the wealthy.  She began working at odd jobs when she was thirteen, the year she left school.  She was allowed to quit her education because she had won a scholarship and was in the top class.  There were no government grants at that time and her parents could not possibly afford her books and clothes so she needed and wanted to contribute to the families needs.
She began working as a kitchen maid because she hated needlework and every other job in these homes required some mending skills. She worked at various homes, some much more pleasant than others, and tells the story of how the wealthy class treated servants through the transition of war and then the end of the era of servants in England. Life was very hard and the striking inequalities in the social classes seems so tragic.  Margaret was especially hurt by one mistress that criticized her for not using a silver salver to present a newspaper, "Tears started to trickle down my cheeks; that someone could think that you were so low that you couldn't even hand them anything out of your hands without it first being placed on a silver salver".
Margaret became quite a good cook but found that once she married she could not put her skills to use because they could not afford the expensive ingredients she was accustomed to using.  Below Stairs is available at Manhattan Public Library as well as the Downton Abby and Upstairs, Downstairs dvds.