After some months of reading Enid Blytons aloud to Emily and Jenna, I am also suffering from a bad case of envy/covetousness. All these old English families seem to have an entire army of helpers living in their homes, plus reinforcements that come and go on a regular basis.
For instance, a typical family (according to Ms Blyton, anyway) in Those Days had someone known as Cook who lived in their home, and prepared all their multiple-course meals. Nothing was made out of a box and certain days of the week were designated baking days, on which Cook (irrespective of her real name) rolled up her sleeves, floured her hands and baked up a storm. These savory goodies were stored in a fabulous room called The Larder, which was out of bounds to hungry children and domestic animals, to provide the family with the next week's meals.
Next, Cook almost always had a young female helper known as Jane who served the meals, cleaned up after, helped with general household chores and was often a confidante of the family's children. Or at least, she was the one from whom they begged kitchen treats when Cook (stereotypically firm-but-possessed-of-a-secretly-kind-heart) had the day off. Given the consistency of her name in these stories, I grew up believing that people named Jane had had their careers planned out for them by their parents since birth.
Then there was the ubiquitous Nurse. She spent all her time in the Nursery of the house, taking care of the children. Taking care of them! A full-time nanny! When they grew old enough to have stories written about their mischievous antics, she homeschooled them until they headed off to boarding school.
In addition to these live-in-help, the families of yore also enjoyed weekly visits from The Woman Who Did The Washing, The Cleaning Lady, The Gardener and various tradespeople who left fresh produce on their doorsteps.
It is not uncommon in Singapore and her neighboring Asian countries for families to have live-in domestic help but nothing like this! An entire staff to run a single family!
And where was Mother in all this? Mother was always in the drawing room, sewing, knitting, or working on her embroidery (but never darning a sock- no, that was Nurse's job). Or writing a letter to a sick friend. Or sometimes in her gardening frock, planting beans or pruning roses. She never cooked. She never changed a diaper. She never mowed the lawn or drove anyone to soccer practice. She never did laundry. She never picked up 674 sticky rice grains from the kitchen floor. She never sat with the Sunday grocery ads, pen poised over ratty notebook, thinking, "Dang, it's Sunday again. What in tarnation should I plan for the next week's meals?" She never homeschooled - although she and Father had the occasional serious discussion about the children's education: to pack them off to boarding school or send them to the vicarage for day school?
Incredibly sexist for our times, yes. But you must understand, we are all sick this week. And all this sounds very, very nice...........
