LIFE IN THE BIG HOUSE

by Pat Whalley

Grandma had six children, my mom was child number two. Aunt Alice was seven years older than my mom and had been “put into service” at 14. This meant that she had gone to work as a live in maid for a wealthy family, when she was fresh out of school. This was common in the early 1900’s when my aunt was a young girl.

Alice’s employers were not terribly rich and just employed my aunt as a full time maid, in addition to a part time gardener. However, compared to my family, they were millionaires. Once a year, when the family were away on their spring vacation, I was allowed to go and stay there for a week.

This was a dream come true to me. They lived in a big house with two staircases, three bathrooms five bedrooms and two big reception rooms. In addition, the dining room had a table that seated sixteen and each room had bell pulls to summon my aunt.

Each bedroom had it’s own colour palette and I always stayed in the rose room. It had a huge bed with a gorgeous, fluffy eiderdown, all the fixtures and wallpaper were in various shades of pink, what moré could a little girl wish for.

The main staircase had two big paintings, Stag at Bay and Monarch of the Glen, both of which depicted a big stag. On the turn in the staircase was a grandfather clock which had a deep tone and could be heard all over the house, especially in bed.

My aunt spent most of her life alone, in her own suite in the home. Her main duties were to cook for the family, clean the house and take the dog for it’s daily walks. The dog was a big springer spaniel, named Bruce. He had his own room, which was actually the mud room, but his big bed took up most of the space. Each morning, after breakfast, my aunt would put Bruce onto his leash and off we would go.

The house was two blocks from the seaside where there was a huge common. On this big grassy area would be walked all the local dogs. Many were walked by family maids so while the dogs ran free and played the ladies enjoyed their time together

On the opposite edge of the common was a convent and now and again we would see the nuns gathering shellfish on the beach. This was my first experience of nuns, who I thought looked terribly severe and scary. The convent had a high brick wall all around and a stout wooden gate, it looked like a very forbidding place to live, however, sometimes there would be beautiful singing coming over the wall, it sounded like angels.

The house where my aunt lived had a big walled garden and, twice a week, the gardener came to keep everything in shape. On the back porch of the house was a glass walled room that my aunt called the Logia. This room had lots of cane chairs and big cushions. I would watch the gardener from one of the chairs and imagined it was my home and dreamed of giving him orders. I never voiced this as he was a rather sour looking man who didn’t look like he had much time for children.

Aunt Alice spent two weeks each year with her own family. This would usually mean that Grandma, aunt Alice, my mom, my brother and I would take the train to the seaside for one week. The next week of my aunt’s vacation would be spent with grandma and went, with the family on various trips to local beauty spots, for picnics.

The week by the seaside would usually be spent in a rented caravan, or trailer, located in a caravan park. Like most of our neighbours, we had no car so off we would go with suitcases full of clothing, canned goods and other necessities to catch the local train. This was about a three mile walk, but nobody seemed to mind this and we would trundle along, me with my bucket and spade for the beach, and my brother with his fishing rod and tin of bait.

We would get to the train station and along with many of our neighbours, would catch the train to the seaside. There would be another couple of miles walk to the caravan park then we would be given the key to our unit.

The usual sleeping arrangements would be my grandma in the bedroom, Aunt Alice and myself in a Murphy bed and my mom and brother on bunks, that would be seats, during the day.

This worked well until breakfast time when my brother would refuse to get up, so there was no place to sit. There would be a daily argument which my brother would ignore and breakfast would be eaten wherever we could find a place to sit.

After breakfast, we all went to the beach, except my brother who would go fishing off the local pier. I would play in the sand or the water while the adults sat around on rented deckchairs. At lunch time my mom would produce a heap of bread and butter. We would share a bag of French fries which we would put on the sandwiches. One portion would serve everyone and it tasted wonderful. There were vendors on the beach who sold jugs of tea to be shared by the family, cups and the jugs were always ironstone and a deposit would be paid, to make sure they would be returned.

At the end of the day we would pack up and return to the caravan, where dinner would be produced from the canned goods brought from home. My brother would not appear until bedtime, which was quite a relief as he was not a pleasant person to be around.

When the week’s vacation was up, it was back to grandma’s house for my aunt and I while mom and my brother went home. We would spend the next week walking to various parks and
local areas for picnics. At the end of the holiday, my grandma and I would wave goodbye to my aunt as she went home on the bus. Vacations probably cost very little but we had a holiday every year and made lots of fun memories.