Kate’s 2¢: Below stairs: the classic kitchen maid’s memoir that inspired Upstairs, downstairs and Downton Abbey by Margaret Powell

: “Below stairs: the classic kitchen maid’s memoir that inspired Upstairs, downstairs and Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   Back in the day, my husband and I would join Alastaire Cooke as he hosted “Upstairs, Downstairs” on PBS’ Masterpiece Theater once a week.  This is the book that inspired it all, so many of the events in the book reminded me of the TV program.

   Cathy Gloeckner did a wonderful job of reading this story.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Ellen Margaret Steer’s father Harry was seasonally employed as a house painter, and her mother Florence was a charwoman. Her parents and her grandmother lived in three rooms in Hove, Sussex, and she had six siblings. When she was 13 and won a scholarship to grammar school, her parents could not afford to allow her to take it up.[1][2][3] She went to work in a laundry until she was 15 and became a maid, first locally and a year later in London. Since she had experience cooking at home and hated needlework, she became a kitchen maid instead of an under-housemaid, a slightly more prestigious position.[1]

After “set[ting] about [finding a husband] as if it were an extra household duty, like hulling five pounds of strawberries or mopping the linoleum floor”,[1] she escaped domestic service by marrying a milkman, Albert Powell.[4] When her three sons were in grammar school, towards the end of the Second World War, she became a maid once more. Eventually, “when I realised I had nothing to talk about with my eldest son, who was preparing to go to university”, she took evening school courses in philosophy, history and literature, passed her O-levels at 58, and went on to A-levels, passing the English A-level in 1969.[5][clarification needed]

Writing career and later life[edit]

She published her memoir, Below Stairs, in 1968. It sold well, 14,000 copies in its first year, and was followed by other autobiographical books beginning the following year. She also wrote some novels.[1] She became a popular guest on television talkshows.[1][6] When she died in April 1984 at 76 after suffering from cancer,[5] she left a substantial estate of £77,000.[1][7]

From NLS/BARD/LOC;:

Below stairs: the classic kitchen maid’s memoir that inspired Upstairs, downstairs and Downton Abbey DBC02943

Powell, Margaret. Reading time: 5 hours, 45 minutes.

Read by Cathy Gloeckner. A production of Colorado Talking Book Library.

Biography

Social Sciences

World History and Affairs

Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants portrayed in “Downton Abbey” and “Upstairs, Downstairs,” Powell’s classic memoir of her time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.

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