Dear Vera,
 Most of this poem is taken from the reminiscences of an old lady.She did
work as a lady's maid and did clean grates as well. She did find the pound
note in a grate -which was 3 weeks wages for her- and she did buy two
nightdresses with it,-unless she was lying, which I doubt.
Whether a poem strikes a reader as real is a bit different from the
documentary details-but Annie's story is based solidly on fact.
 It seems to me that sometimes it's possible to miss the forest by peering
too closely at the details of the bark.
All the best
grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vera Rich" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 4:37 AM
Subject: Re: Annie


> I do not want to appear to carp - but as a matter of social history
>
> a) a 'lady's maid' would not lay or light fires; Are the 'nobs' perhaps
> quite not so 'nobbish' as they would like to make out - and is Annie
perhaps
> only a 'maid of all work'?
>
> b) the housemaid (or whoever) who did light the fires would not wear a
white
> apron while doing so in the morning, she would wear a ('natural' coloured)
> hessian one; maids changed into the black dress/white apron uniform only
> later in the day;
>
> c)  I am a bit worried about the financial details. When were treasury
notes
> (pounds and ten shillings) introduced? I am not certain of the exact
date -
> but I am fairly sure it was early 20th century. Gold sovereigns were
> definitely in common circulation until 1914.
>
> Nor am I sure of the exact scale of maids' wages. I did research it for a
> scrpt once - set in 1849, in which I had a character say that  the cost of
a
> visa for Russia (£2/15/-) was more 'a  quarter's wages for decent
> housemaid!' -i.e. a housemaid maid would have earned about £10.00 a year -
> which would be just under 4/- a week - though, of course, servants'
salaries
> were paid weekly or quarterly.  I do not know off the cuff how much
> servants' wages rose during the latter half of the nineteenth century
(never
> having had to write anything on it!). You have Annie on 6/8d a week -
which
> seems quite high for a live-in maid 'all found' in the Victorian era  (at
> least for one who was low enough in the 'below stairs hierarchy to have to
> light fires) which suggests something fairly late - so this could overlap
> with pound notes. But it would be worth checking out with a book on
> Victorian/Edwardian social history.
>