PRIVATE LIVES

Southland Times, Issue 23376, 7 December 1937, Page 3

PRIVATE LIVES

Domestic Servants SHOULD HOUSEWIVES INQUIRE? LONDON. Vienna has accused London housewives of being “snobs, 'indifferent to social reform, worse than the Victorians,” because they know nothing of their domestic servants’ private lives, and have no personal contact with their maids. Arguing the point in a woman’s parliament, we thought that it was a strange set of values which assess democracy on whether you know if your maid’s mother has lumbago, whether she is from Pimlico or Wales, whether she has a mother who beat her when young. “Now, try Gladys—she’s Welsh,” said Mrs L. Farrow. “Just see what you can get out of her.” Gladys is a gem, and runs a house of seven rooms in Chelsea—but she is as silent as she is efficient. She is the type of girl who would think it was impertinent to inquire into her home life. She is just naturally suspicious. She comes from Cardiff, is seventeen, has good references, and sends 10/— home a week and thinks that is all anyone who engages her as a domestic should know.

To anyone who wants to know any more—“pry” would be her word for it —she is just silent and Welsh.

Yet between Mrs Farrow and Gladys there is a real friendship. “We get on very well—and that does not consist of chatting about our family life. There is enough in the running of the house to keep the conversation on a friendly basis. “We go to the pictures together, do our shopping, keep the house going on a joint partnership—yet it would never occur to me to ask about her family life.” Generalizing, the author of an article in a leading newspaper has tried to discourage Austrian girls from taking situations in Britain because women here are bad to work for, snobbish and unaware of the conditions or home life of the girls they employ. There are several cases where housewives give their maids holidays, send them home with a bundle of clothes and a week’s extra pay. Mrs Terry is one .... She goes out to the city, lives in a flat in Hampstead Road, and relies entirely on her maid, Elizabeth, for running the home. “I have known for years that Elizabeth’s people are in a bad way, and 1 have done what I could to help them. “Surely it is natural that a mistress is going to give as much sympathy and help to her maid as necessary, if only to keep her happy in the job. They are difficult enough to find.”