Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor (27 page)

The mention of Mrs Bouverie brings to mind a conversation I had with Charles Dean recently. I asked him why she had been such a friend of the royals. It appears that her mother, Mrs Willie James, was perhaps the most famous or notorious of all King Edward VII’s mistresses. I couldn’t see this as a reason for giving her the entreé to Buckingham Palace. Charles then muttered something about blood being thicker than water, and when I asked him to explain, he said that in Edwardian times the children often took after the men that their mothers most admired, like people take after their dogs and cats today. It was all in the mind, he said. His Mrs Bouverie must have been hot-blooded like her mother, because she married three times.

While the war gave some women the chance of not having to worry about their appearance, if possible my lady became more particular. She was not one for dressing up to look like the working classes so that they would feel she was one of them. She believed it boosted people’s morale to see her smart and well turned out, and it gave the impression that come what might Hitler wasn’t going to get her down, or change her way of life. Also I think it helped her to keep going. It was a challenge to me with clothing on coupons. Fortunately she had a large wardrobe and by my cutting up and restyling I suppose you could have said when you looked at her, ‘You wouldn’t think there was a war on.’ Like many others she did fiddle a few coupons. I’ve got letters from her to prove it, and of course I gave her what I could spare from my ration. Friends in America also sent her things. All very reprehensible you may say, but it’s very human, and feminine. It got her into trouble. In the summer of 1943 she wrote to a Mr Yandall, a friend of hers in the Red Cross, and asked him to bring stockings and clothes over for her when he next flew to Britain. The letter was opened by the censor, proceedings were taken against her and she was summoned to appear at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court. Some of the newspapers took a ‘holier than thou’ attitude against her, but she herself made light of it. She was speaking in Parliament the same morning that she had to appear and when the time came for her to leave she said a sort of ‘Toodle-oo, I’m off to Bow Street’ to the Members and nearly got a round of applause for it. Apparently the people who administer the laws in this country are not so light-hearted as those who make them. She told me that the magistrate was not in the least amused, ticked her off as if she was a naughty schoolgirl and fined her £50. It was water off a duck’s back and as a punishment definitely backfired. When her American friends heard about it she was flooded with nylons.

While the latter years of the war when the tide turned in our favour were not uneventful and often exciting, there is little to record from a servant’s point of view. The old order had changed. Mr Lee and the housekeeper, with a skeleton staff, many of them dailies, the older married women, kept Cliveden running remarkably smoothly. The chef managed with little help in the kitchens, but then there wasn’t the food available and the amount of entertaining was comparatively negligible. The gardens and greenhouses were just maintained.

It was a period of stagnation for town and country houses. It was also a time of enlightenment, too, for in many places where for years scant attention had been paid to kitchens and the servants’ quarters below stairs, mistresses were now paying the penalty. They were having to work down there themselves and, with the bombing, suddenly the basement rooms became the most important in the house – and the most lived in. Yet many of them were damp, dark, poorly heated and their cooking and cleaning facilities were old-fashioned. For the Astor staff, and particularly the old faithfuls of whom I had now become one, the most striking change was in relationships. No longer did the distinction of servant and master apply. We were family. We’d soldiered together, looked death in the face and suffered the loss of many friends. We’d been shown qualities which no other circumstances would have demonstrated to us, and had shared emotions that would otherwise have remained hidden. We’d liked what we’d seen and these things were now ties as strong as those of class and birth. They are bonds that few if any will ever know again. They have given my life a purpose.

By the end of 1944, when victory in Europe was assured, two decisions were made which were to change the shape of our lives. His lordship, partly because of ill health and partly because of political pressures in Plymouth, decided not to stand again as Lord Mayor. It grieved him I know because of all the work that he had done for the reconstruction of the city and which he now very largely had to hand over to others.

Her ladyship also decided not to stand as a Member of the Sutton Division of Plymouth at the next general election. I say she decided; this is a distortion of the truth. It was decided for her by his lordship, with the support of the family. She was against it and gave way only under pressure, then spent years resenting it and showing her resentment to those who had pressured her. Particularly was this true of her attitude towards his lordship. It meant that at a time when the two of them could have been expected to come closer together, and when he needed love and kindness to compensate for his illness, he got only contention and mistrust. Nor did she see, when the election results showed that his lordship had been right, that the country wanted a change and new faces, that she would almost certainly have lost her seat.

So the war, during which she’d given such a sparkling account of herself, ended in what she would have called her defeat. As, in a way, it did for Churchill. Though in so many respects they were opposites, they had similar natures. I remember her saying, ‘Only I and Mr Churchill enjoy the war, but only I admit it.’

I
began my working life with one ambition: to travel. I achieved it beyond my early dreams and in the grand manner. For me the saying might have been written, ‘We haven’t much money but we do see life’. For this I have to thank her ladyship because she didn’t just take me with her and forget about me. From the moment she realized I was an avid sightseer – and I made this plain from the start – she either took me around with her or else arranged and paid for me to go on coach tours. I remember the first time I visited the Continent with her, she saw me buying some picture postcards. ‘What are you getting those for, Rose?’ she asked.

‘Well, my lady, none of the people I know are going to believe me when I tell them where I’ve been unless I can show them proof. These are the proof.’

From then on she always bought my cards for me. I’ve still got them. I could give a travel talk with lantern slides that would last for several days. I could write a book on the places I’ve seen, but I’m not going to. There have though been certain incidents on our journeyings that I think are worth the telling which show the kind of things that servants have to be ready for, and which illustrate my lady’s character and behaviour.

The United States of course was her second home, if you can say that about someone who already had four in Britain. I visited there with her over twenty times, mostly, I’m glad to say, by sea. I loved the luxury of the great lines and enjoyed the opportunity to catch up on my sleep. I’ve stayed in the best hotels in the world, and in many of the greatest houses. Even the grandest though can hold surprises. I remember in 1932 we were staying with Mr Thomas Lamont, the famous banker of the House of Pierpont Morgan. I was given a charming room, and spent what I thought was a comfortable night. The following morning while I was attending her ladyship she said, ‘What’s the matter with your arm, Rose?’ It was covered in bites.

‘It seems as if the mosquitoes have had a meal out of me, my lady.’

She looked at them and then stepped away from me as if I’d got the plague. ‘Those aren’t mosquito bites; they’re bug bites. Go and see the housekeeper at once, there must be bugs in your bed.’

Well, away I went and saw the housekeeper and very unpleasant she was too. ‘You must have brought them with you from the ship,’ she said. I wasn’t going to take that.

‘Lady Astor does not travel on buggy ships, it’s your buggy bed. Let’s go and see.’

We did, and her ladyship was right: the mattress was alive with them. I went back and reported, ‘They want to put me in another room, but if you don’t mind I’d rather go to the Westbury Hotel where Arthur Bushell is staying. You know the old saying, my lady, “Once bitten, twice shy”.’ That started her laughing so I got my way. There was a tremendous fuss about it all. Mrs Lamont apologized to me personally, and the housemaid was sacked. When I got to the Westbury I put all my clothes out on the balcony that night. It was freezing hard and I thought it would get rid of those that there might be in them. I’d never seen any before and I’ve never seen any since, I’m thankful to say. The trouble with the mention of bugs is that it sets people off itching. I noticed her ladyship scratching herself during the rest of our stay with the Lamonts. I’m sure both she and his lordship were glad when we left.

A disadvantage of our American trips was that her ladyship was asked to make public speeches wherever we went. Indeed I suppose that that was sometimes the purpose of our going there. Unfortunately she was very outspoken and would take the opportunity of criticizing either the government of the country or some of the people, such as the Irish or the Roman Catholics, and of course she was always on about strong drink. Freedom of speech is all very well, but there’s also freedom to write, and the newspapers took full advantage of it. Also the day after she’d spoken she seemed to get a sackful of abusive letters. It was my job to separate them from the ordinary mail, to go through them and to read some of the ruder ones to my lady. It used to upset me that people could write such terrible things, but she would only laugh. ‘You worry more about them than I do, Rose.’

Miss Wissie and the boys were travellers from early ages, at first mainly to Europe. We paid annual visits to Switzerland for the winter sports, the South of France and Italy. Mr Jakie was being introduced to the Continent when I first joined her ladyship, so he and I were constant companions and great fun he was, amusing and witty from an early age without being smart or precocious. He enjoyed doing battle with his mother. I remember once when we were in Brioni in Italy, he and I hired a couple of bicycles and rode around sightseeing. I thought I’d go native so I bought a beret. When my lady saw me in it she shrieked, ‘Take that off, I’m not going to keep a maid who wears a thing like that on her head.’ Rather shamefacedly I pulled it off.

‘Put it back on, Rose, I like it,’ said Mr Jakie, ‘and since it’s me you’re going out with I’m the person that matters. I’m going to photograph you in it and I’ll give you a copy and I’ll give one to Ma.’

True to form her ladyship loved someone standing up to her, and she roared with laughter and sent us on our way with her blessing, both on us and the beret.

A trip I shall always remember was one we took in the 1930s. Her ladyship was attending a women’s international convention in Istanbul and was travelling there with Dame Edith Lyttelton. Well, I thought my lady was forgetful, but it seemed these intellectual women were worse. We went by train from Victoria station. We were to be travelling for three nights and two days and I looked forward to a peaceful and interesting time. All was well till we got to Dover. I went to collect the two ladies, to find the carriage in an uproar. All Dame Edith’s luggage was opened and her things scattered round the place. She’d lost her passport.

Well, I helped in what I knew to be a fruitless search. She hadn’t lost it, she had just forgotten to bring it with her. Eventually we gave up, packed up and with her ladyship pulling a few strings and judiciously disposing of a few pound notes, we were allowed on the boat with instructions to get a temporary passport from the British Embassy in Paris. When we got to the Gare du Nord I took the luggage over to the Gare de Lyons while the ladies sorted things out at the Embassy. They arrived back with not a lot of time to spare before the train left. We got to the ticket barrier. ‘You’ve got the tickets, Edith,’ said my lady.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, rummaging in her handbag.

‘Oh no,’ I thought, with a sinking stomach, and I was right. ‘What on earth did you give them to her for?’ I whispered fiercely.

‘Shut up, Rose,’ my lady replied in defence.

We were at our wits’ end, the train was almost due out, there was no time to do anything. Suddenly up someone rushed calling out, ‘Lady Astor, Lady Astor.’ It was a messenger from the Embassy with the tickets in his hand. Dame Edith made to take them, but I got there first. ‘Oh no, from now on I’ll take charge of these,’ I said, and her ladyship agreed.

Well, by the time we got to Istanbul we were all exhausted, and Dame Edith nearly penniless. Nobody on any of the frontiers we passed through liked the look of the passport, and a lot of money was needed for the necessary visas. In a nasty way I rather enjoyed it, watching my lady get more and more testy. I thought it would show her how easy she had it when all she had to do normally was to rely on me.

The hotel in Istanbul looked comfortable enough when we got there, but I got a horrid shock when we were taken to my lady’s room. I went over to the window as I always did to check on fire precautions. When I looked out, there below was a pile full of refuse, covered in scavenging cats. If she saw them I knew there’d be fireworks, and I wasn’t in the mood. I drew the curtains.

‘What are you doing that for, Rose?’

‘I thought you’d want a bath straight away,’ I said, and ran one for her. This and dressing filled in some time, but I was still afraid I was merely putting off the moment when she would see what was going on below and we’d have to pack up and find another hotel. I got her into the corridor and on her way down to luncheon and popped back into the room for a quick peep out of the window. To my astonishment the cats and the refuse had all disappeared.