Diamonds at Dinner - My Life as a Lady's Maid in a 1930s Stately Home (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781782196105)

The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a Coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to a gilded era which would be brutally swept away by the Second World War. Hers is a very personal story of being transplanted from a tiny house with no bath or hot water to an eighteenth-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by parkland landscaped by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. But it is also the remarkable story of the family whose service she entered - and that of Croome Court itself: during World War Two, it housed the Dutch Royal Family - who had fled the Nazi occupation - and it was also home to the top-secret RAF base where radar was developed. This is Hilda's story.

Author: Tim Tate, Hilda Newman
ISBN-10: 1782196102
ISBN-13: 9781782196105
Publisher: John Blake
Language: English
Published: 09/02/2013
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.43lbs
Size: 7.75h x 5.26w x 0.76d