I started cooking family meals myself at about age 11, and have been doing it ever since. I wished there might have been a bit more depth-not dishing dirt, but a few more tales of her misadventures as a beginning kitchenmaid cook. She also moved around too much, spending little more than a year in most posts until she got married-and in those days married women weren't expected to remain in service unless their husband was the butler or something.Ī light, fast read. No dissing on the great and the good to be found here-Wadlow is the essence of the "family retainers" of 19th and early 20th century fiction, though down in the kitchen she was too far from the action to live vicariously through her employers. In recent years Alan has had his photographs published in books such as Portrait of Norwich.Very short, very sweet. He has also been involved in the setting up of children’s ‘living history’ projects. Flo is an amazing lady by any standards and her book will surely give great pleasure to all who read it.Īlan Childs is a teacher and historian, and the author of a number of books, including children’s historical fiction. Aged 95 she still has a great enthusiasm for life, and in her cottage a tottering pile of encyclopaedias, dictionaries and thesauri are ready at hand. Flo made the most of every opportunity, and after her marriage, continued to enjoy her cooking in every capacity possible, based around the village of Heydon. Her story is told with no resentment that the lowly position of servants, such as herself, supported the privileged life-style of her employers ‘upstairs’. Flo started, aged 16, as a young kitchen maid in South Kensington and at the almost unheard-of age of 23 was appointed cook at Blickling Hall. Flo Wadlow’s life in full-time domestic service provides a fascinating story of a world that has disappeared.
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