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Lady's Maid

£6.495£12.99Clearance
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I used Polo & Tweed to find me a housekeeper after I had my second child to help around the house so that I could concentrate on the new baby and my toddler. The service Polo & Tweed provided was excellent. I was able to interview several candidates before finding an excellent housekeeper. I was supported in finding someone who was the right fit for my situation. They also took the headache out of agreeing hours, contracts and pay. The housekeeper was excellent and just knew what needed to be done without being asked.

The companion's role was to spend her time with her employer, providing company and conversation, to help her to entertain guests and often to accompany her to social events. In return she would be given a room in the family's part of the house, rather than the servants' quarters; all of her meals would be provided, and she would eat with her employer; and she would be paid a small salary, which would be called an "allowance" – never "wages". She would not be expected to perform any domestic duties which her employer might not carry out herself, in other words little other than giving directions to servants, fancy sewing and pouring tea. Thus the role was not very different from that of an adult relation in respect of the lady of a household, except for the essential subservience resulting from financial dependency. [ citation needed] Most of us would enjoy having a lady’s maid to press our clothes and fix our hair, but would you want to be an abigail? As for myself, I probably could not keep up! If she had one constant preoccupation, it was the role of women in society, and in one of her most moving books, Hidden Lives (1995), she took herself and her family as prime examples of social mobility in Britain in the 20th century. Her grandmother was in service and led a life of pitiful drudgery. Her mother was bright, got a place in a high school and a job as a clerk – a job she had to give up as soon as she married. Third generation Margaret went to Somerville College, Oxford, where she read history.To become a lady’s maid was not an easy task. The job of a lady’s maid was rare because such jobs were available only among the nobility or the elite, serving such woman as the Duchess of Devonshire, Madame Récamier, or the Princesse de Lamballe. There were plenty of jobs for household servants but few for a lady’s maid. Moreover, the knowledge involved in training a ladý’s maid was enormous. What they had to learned could not be acquired overnight. To become a lady’s maid, potential candidates trained for the position by first functioning as an assistant to a lady’s maid. Training often began when candidates were fresh from home or school and began after they entered a mistress’s home for the first time. However, to be considered for training, a candidate also had to possess certain traits and characteristics with one being that she was “a superior sort of girl.”[2] A description of such a girl was provided by one lady: Beside her main duties, the Lady’s Maid was a companion or even friend of the lady of the house. She looked after her health, foibles and weaknesses. A good Lady’s maid protected her mistress’s secrets and remained a loyal employee at all times. Therefore, it was essential for the Lady’s maid to be discrete, reliable, trustworthy. Perks One of the main duties of a lady’s maid was to oversee and dress her mistress appropriately. Training a lady’s maid to perform this function properly meant they had to learn the rules of contrast and harmony to achieve the best outcome for their mistress. Even millinery needed to be selected carefully to avoid mistresses clad in unfashionable or unflattering bonnets or hats. After all you could not have a small headed woman overpowered by a large bonnet or a large-headed mistress appear as if a clown wearing a tiny, silly looking hat. Today’s LM/PA will, for the most part, concentrate on aiding with clothes, shopping and styling (often already experienced in personal shopping), taking care of hairdressing and cosmetic appointments and generally concerning herself with both the diary planning and the grooming and preparation of the Lady’s wardrobe and presentation. She is likely to liaise with the employer’s associates and other staff so confidence and natural rapport-building skills will certainly be an advantage. She must be an honest self-starter and able to anticipate her employer’s needs and requirements ahead of time. A willingness to understand or a knowledge of cultural differences, with particular reference to wardrobe and diet, when travelling with employers, is of great advantage; knowing the cultural dress that is necessary or appropriate for foreign state dinners and suchlike. We have full time travelling lady’s maids and freelance personal stylists/dressers on our books so you could hire someone to shop for, or dress for a one off event.

Training a lady’s maid also required that they know that they had to be constantly improving themselves and acquiring knowledge to effectively maintain their fitness for the position. When chores for the day were finished, candidates were instructed to practice reading and writing and “spare no pains to [constantly] improve.”[12] Reading aloud was also suggested, as was constant writing because legible and well-written notes of instruction needed to be provided to tradespeople. It was also important such notes be provided in a “neat, legible hand … [with] lines running straight across the paper.”[13] Sewing was another skill that served candidates well because “a girl who is clever and thoughtful about other things will easily learn to do this perfectly well.”[14] But most importantly, candidates needed to remember that “the chief purpose of many comforts and conveniences that rich people have about them is to set their time and their thoughts free for their serious occupations,”[15] and with a properly trained lady’s maid, mistresses were able to do just that! Her reputation as a writer had grown rapidly. She wrote intensely and her output was prodigious, but it was with Georgy Girl in 1965 that her reputation was secured. The story of a lumpy and lachrymose girl in search of love had immense popular appeal and was made into a successful film the following year with Lynn Redgrave in the title role. After watching Sense and Sensibility with her mother, Leslie became a fan of Jane Austen, reading her collected works over the next few years. Pride and Prejudice stood out as a favourite and has dominated her writing since finding Jane Austen Fan Fiction.I can highly recommend Polo and Tweed and am very grateful for all of their help. Lucy was fabulous and always made time to speak to me and answer any questions I had. Thanks Polo and Tweed. Miss Taylor, one of the first characters met in Jane Austen's novel Emma, lives with the Woodhouses "less as a governess than a friend" to her grown-up charge. Wardrobe care and ensuring that all items sent out for specialist cleaning or alterations are promptly returned and that the work is carried out to a high standard. Ability to catalogue your wardrobe with ease of location and rotation of seasonal items. There has always been a tradition with this role for the lady’s maid to be mindful and informed about etiquette, local cultures and formalities to ensure that you can relax in the knowledge that you are always appropriately turned out. Fascinating . . . The reader is treated to a revealing account of the passionate romance between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning through the eyes of an intimate observer.”—Booklist

Fact into fiction became her forte, the novels based on social problems such as single motherhood, youth crime, and, most poignantly, the care of old people: having seen her much-loved mother-in-law descend into Alzheimer’s disease and watched the treatment she received, she wrote with outrage what must be one of her most memorable novels, Have the Men Had Enough? (1989). Fact as good as fiction is in the two books about her own family that have become modern classics: Hidden Lives, and its loving and honest sequel about her indomitable 90-year-old father, Precious Lives (1998). L.L. Diamond is more commonly known as Leslie to her friends and Mom to her three kids. A native of Louisiana, she spent the majority of her life living within an hour of New Orleans before following her husband all over as a military wife. In small households where upper-housemaids are not kept, the. lady’s-maid after dressing her mistress for dinner, would go to the room of the lady guests, and ask if she could render them any assistance. We anticipate restoring more services in the next few weeks, but disruption to certain services is now expected to

la′dy's maid′

A lady's maid's specific duties included helping her mistress with her appearance, including make-up, hairdressing, clothing, jewellery, and shoes. A lady's maid would also remove stains from clothing; sew, mend, and alter garments as needed; bring her mistress breakfast in her room; and draw her mistress's bath. However, she would not be expected to dust and clean every small item, as that would be the job of a housemaid. [2] Examples of lady's maids [ edit ] The lady’s-maid’s duties are much as follows; she rises in good time, brings her mistress her early morning cup of tea, and arranges her room, prepares her bath— the housemaid bringing the cans of water, hot or cold— and lays in readiness everything which will be required for dressing, then she retires until rung for; this time she will employ in brushing and looking over the things worn yesterday. Then she has her own breakfast in the “housekeeper’s room,” and is ready to attend to her mistress directly her bell summons her, when she dresses her hair, removes her dressing-gown, and puts on her dress, doing all the finishing touches to her toilet. When training a lady’s maid there was another important duty that they needed to learn related to medical tasks. For instance, when doctors appeared, the lady’s maid was often in attendance and sometimes she was instructed to change bandages, wash out dressings, or apply leeches. These intimate tasks of course were to be accomplished discretely and never spoken of “at all.”

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