A number of members felt as they left the village hall after Chris Upton’s talk entitled ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ that they had seldom learned so much and laughed so much! This talk on life above and below stairs in Victorian England was perfectly balanced and, while they were all laughing at some of the stories he had extracted from contemporary newspapers, they learned at the same time about the wages and conditions of work of the servants of Victorian England.

Many remarked afterwards on the thoroughness of Mr Upton’s research through the old documents and in libraries, particularly in the newspapers that gave details of the kind of ”sober and industrious” servants that were required. Often “girls from the country” were asked for as they were often not only of better character than their town bred sisters, but also asked for less money!

Insobriety was not the prerogative of young girls however: many older people drank heavily to mitigate the hardships upon their lives.  One story Mr Upton told from a press report at the time: a middle-aged woman, much the worse for drink, was apprehended by the police while she was dancing with abandon to the music of a barrel organ.  After being taken to the police station and charged, she was observed to have returned to the barrel organ and was dancing in such a way “that the colours of her garters was no well-kept secret”.

The evening was over far too soon for most of the audience and they look forward to a return visit from Chris Upton.