It's a must-read for fans of Downton Abbey. However, I feel like I wouldn't have had any context to enjoy it without having watched Downton. I might not have been able to picture things as well if I hadn't. ( )

The actual details of domestic service was very interesting. However, it took a lot of chapters to get to this. Overall quite a short book that could have been better. ( )

Fascinating ( )

It was okay. It was like listening to your grandmother tell you stories about the old days and how things were different back then, of course. She writes plainly and most of the chapters are unrelated to each other. She starts at the beginning and carries on chronologically until she gets up to the point where she decided to start writing her book. Maybe this would hit home more for people in the UK vs in the US. ( )

A teenaged Margaret Powell had her sights on becoming a teacher, but lack of money squashed her plans. Instead she entered domestic services as a kitchen maid, the very lowest level of domestic service there was. The job was bewildering at first; the cook expected her to know how to do things like blacklead the grate, scrub the steps, and iron bootlaces. No one showed her anything, and she had to quickly learn on the job. Margaret soon realized there was little time for fun. As Powell worked her way up to cook, she tried to bide her time until she could fulfill her real goal: finding a suitable husband. Filled with wit and wisdom, Below Stairs gives the reader a look at the many challenges and scant rewards of being in domestic service during the first half of the 1900s in England.

The Bottom Line: This quick read is perfect for the beach or a rainy weekend. Powell takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour of life in domestic service. Things have changed a bit since Powell was in service, but many of her insights and observations are still relevant today. This memoir will appeal to fans of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey. Also, recommended for fans of tell-all memoirs and British social history.

For the complete review including Book Club Notes, please visit the Mini Book Bytes Book Review Blog. ( )

Margaret Powell’s memoirs, Below Stairs, are a description of her life in domestic service. She was born in 1907 in Hove in the United Kingdom and left school at the age of 13 to start working. At 14, she got a job in a hotel laundry room and a year later went into service as a kitchen maid. She eventually progressed to the position of cook, working various jobs until marrying her milkman husband and having three sons.

Domestic service was not a job for the faint-hearted. I know that I wouldn’t last 10 minutes under the conditions that servants were subjected to then nor could I do the work that was required. Starting at 5:30 am and working until bed-time was the norm. As a kitchen maid she was to assist the cook, but in reality, there were many other chores she had to do as well, including polishing boots, and scrubbing both front porch and door. Realizing that only she could improve her situation, she passed herself off as a trained cook, going to temporary jobs until she felt ready to work as a permanent full-time cook.

Mrs. Powell’s writing style is warm and chatty, like reading a letter from an old friend as she paints vivid descriptions of the great houses of the 1920s and the vanishing life styles that were soon to give way to modern life. Her stories of food to be prepared, mistresses to please and other servants to get along with are interesting, unsentimental and earthy. I found her an admirable person who after having three children, went back to school and passed her ‘O’ levels at age 58. Below Stairs is a charming inside account of what domestic service was actually like back in the early 20th century. ( )

De lectura lixeira, pero non está mal. ( )

De lectura lixeira, pero non está mal. ( )

Best for:
Those interested in learning about different lives

In a nutshell:
Author Margaret Powell shares stories from her life working as a Kitchen Maid in England.

Worth quoting:
“I couldn’t help thinking of my poor father and mother at home, who never worked. I just couldn’t help thinking of the unfairness of life.”

Why I chose it:
I picked this up at a charity book sale at work just before lock down, then rescued it from my desk in September. It just looked interesting.

Review:
I was looking to learn something about a life that was different from mine, and boy did I find it here. The author starts out sharing what she and her siblings did for fun, but soon switches over to her work life. And it wasn’t just soon in the sense of the book, it was soon in the sense of her life. At 13 she earned a small scholarship and wanted to work to be a teacher, but that would have meant her parents would have had to continue paying for her schooling until she was 18, and that just wasn’t an option. So instead she went to work as a domestic worker in a house at the age of 13.

THIRTEEN. Ack. That’s so young. She lived in the home where she worked with the other domestic workers, so she was not only working but living on her own at an age when I was still in middle school. And she was working HARD. She’d get 4-10pm off one weeknight and one weekend evening each week. Not even a full day off. She’d be up at 5:30 to do tasks, and not be done until 8 or 9 at night. And she was doing hard labour - lots of cleaning and polishing and washing, and this was the 1920s, so she was doing this without the vast majority of conveniences we use when doing similar work.

In addition to the hard work, what she shared about the relationship between the staff and the families in the home was not unbelievable, but was so just … gross. Only one of the many families she worked for seemed to really treat the staff well. One yelled at her for handing the lady of the house something directly, with her hand, as opposed to using a tray to do it. As though the family member couldn’t bear to touch someone so low. I’d love to think times have changed, but considering how poorly people treat people who work in the service industry, I don’t think it’s that different. The location of the disdain has changed, but not the feelings of superiority.

Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it. ( )

This was interesting and surprisingly well written ( )

A non-fiction memoir that inspired the writer of Downton Abbey....her comments about how things were done "back then" are fascinating ,her comments about how they are done now a bit annoying (we get it!) and yet when she was describing the cooks, maids, butlers etc she worked with I kept hearing them speak i the voices of the actors from the show! ( )

GOODREADS! I have neglected you. Forgive me!

Memoir my butt. This is a snarky blog. "Secret Diaries of a Kitchen Maid."

It's basically perfect. ( )

Read for book club and really enjoyed it. ( )

It's a must-read for fans of Downton Abbey. However, I feel like I wouldn't have had any context to enjoy it without having watched Downton. I might not have been able to picture things as well if I hadn't. ( )

If you're an Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey viewer you should read this. it's a quick read, nothing earth shaking, but interesting as to what life was *really like belowstairs in the 20s. Margaret has a tart tongue, this was first published in 68 , and there's much about "nowadays versus then" like you might expect. Most people realize that the scenes from the shows are nowhere near accurate as to how servants actually interacted with their employers. Worth it for any fans of the shows, but the rest could probably live without it. She comes across as fairly well read, which was probably also not the norm for a kitchen maid back then. ( )

The jacket quote describes Powell's account as "feisty," and I would agree! "Downtown Abbey" may have made domestic service look civilized and somehow elegant but Powell is straight-ahead practical and bluntly honest as she relates her experiences as a kitchen maid and cook. If you're going through "Downton" withdrawal, pick this up for a colorful rendering of the past and get ready to laugh. ( )

I bought this book because Amazon recommended it (if you like Upstairs, Downstairs, you'll like Below Stairs). I didn't. A true life recounting of a woman who, having no alternative, is forced into service just after WWI. Published in 1968, the book (thankfully short) is a diatribe of bitterness against servitude and harping about how things are different "nowadays" (child raising, grocery buying, children's games, etc.). While I can understand her resentment over being intelligent but poor, she has a personality that is hard to like. She had tried a number of jobs before going into service and hated them all because everything was beneath her. Eventually, she became a cook and learned a few things, even finding along the way, employers who did NOT make servants feel as though they were second class citizens. There wasn't even a feeling that she had struggled through life and overcome all adversity to be a better person. Just not all entertaining and I'm disappointed that Amazon's recommendation let me down so badly. ( )

Powell writes from a vantage point of forty-plus year about her years in domestic service during the 1920s, when she worked first as a kitchen maid—beginning at age fourteen—and then as a cook. There is a bit of the crotchety old lady about her writing style; she remains bitter about the way some of her employers treated their employees as a lesser class with no need for comfort or respect, and feels that though “nowadays” that has changed, she certainly finds fault with plenty about modern life. (The food doesn’t taste as good, for instance.) Still, her details about life “below stairs” are fascinating, from the subtle rankings of the servants to the challenge of cooking on a coal “range” and cleaning knives before the invention of stainless steel. ( )

Margaret Powell was a very self-aware person in domestic Service to the English rich. She was quite conscious of her need for a job, and the social structure she was subjecting herself to. An intelligent memoir with several flashes of acerbic wit. ( )

Below Stairs is a memoir of a woman who entered into domestic service as a kitchen maid at 13 and who saw the injustice of her situation (and indeed of all those in servitude) at a time when conditions were on the peak of changing. At the beginning of the tale, Margaret Powell is at home with her family which is large (typical of the time) and poor (also typical of many families). She must leave home, school, and everything she is familiar with because there is not enough money to keep her. What she discovers at her first place of work in service is that the dichotomy between Them upstairs and the servants below stairs is extremely pronounced despite the whisper of changes on the horizon. As the lowest rung on the service ladder, the kitchen maid (in Margaret's opinion) is treated with the least amount of respect or common decency. The story goes on to describe not only the differences between the classes but also the differences between the sexes. Powell's views are modern and revolutionary for the time period and her wit is absolutely biting. I thought this was a very interesting and entertaining read and I can definitely see how Downton Abbey used this as a reference point (you'll recognize some plot points if you're a fan of the show). I recommend it for anyone who'd like a quick, fun read that's also chock full of history (and cooking!). ( )

I enjoyed this, both for her insights and descriptions of what being in domestic service meant, and for the fact that she never took to it blindly and subserviently-- the memoir emphasizes her having her own independent thoughts, and seeking out situations where she could be treated fairly. Also, several touches of wry humor. A great read! ( )

I enjoyed this, both for her insights and descriptions of what being in domestic service meant, and for the fact that she never took to it blindly and subserviently-- the memoir emphasizes her having her own independent thoughts, and seeking out situations where she could be treated fairly. Also, several touches of wry humor. A great read! ( )

I enjoyed this, both for her insights and descriptions of what being in domestic service meant, and for the fact that she never took to it blindly and subserviently-- the memoir emphasizes her having her own independent thoughts, and seeking out situations where she could be treated fairly. Also, several touches of wry humor. A great read! ( )

I enjoyed this, both for her insights and descriptions of what being in domestic service meant, and for the fact that she never took to it blindly and subserviently-- the memoir emphasizes her having her own independent thoughts, and seeking out situations where she could be treated fairly. Also, several touches of wry humor. A great read! ( )

You know the book-reviewing cliché: "reading this book is just like sitting down and having a cup of tea with your new best friend". Below Stairs really is like that. Margaret Powell depicts her life in domestic service in 1920s England in a breezy, conversational manner, although not without occasional moments of righteous indignation, and even, she admits, bitterness.

Powell was born in 1907. Her working-class family had too many children and often, not enough to eat. Beginning in her early teens, she found work as a kitchen maid in the homes of the upper crust, eventually climbing up the staff hierarchy to the position of cook. It was a harsh life of strenuous labor, made even more difficult by her employers' habit of acting as though their servants were invisible.

In her later years, after leaving domestic service, marrying and having children, Powell was finally able to complete her education and write this book. Powell depicts a way of life that no longer exists, but, as far as Powell is concerned, there's no reason to be nostalgic for working conditions that were only a few steps above those of actual slavery. She writes, "[The servants] weren't free in any way. So maybe that was the reason why the work and those that did it were looked down upon, because we were...bound to our employers." (p. 190). ( )