work from the time he left school. He started to work in a gentlemen’s hatters as errand boy and he gradually worked his way up till he was a sort of chief shop assistant. His
greatest ambition was to become a floor walker. Personally I thought it was a terrible ambition.
They don’t seem to have floor walkers these days. I suppose the aisles are so full of people there wouldn’t be enough room for a floor walker to manoeuvre. But in those days with
less people around and less money around, it was more the well-to-do who patronized these kind of shops and I well remember the floor walkers in their frock coats – snootiest people
imaginable, they seemed. But they were very discerning.
They could size up a customer the minute they saw one. The deference in their manner when greeting somebody who looked as though they hadn’t a ha’penny to their name but they sensed
came from a titled family! Whereas someone smart with probably a lot of money would only get slight attention. They graded their civility according to the aristocratic position of their
customers.
To listen to Fred’s conversation you would have thought that all the nobility and gentry came up to Fred’s counter in preference to anybody else. He’d say, ‘Who do you
think I served this morning?’ Nobody cared of course but you knew that you were going to hear just the same. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘Lady Betty – now there’s a real
lady for you.’ What an unreal one was I never did find out. ‘She gave me such a sweet smile.’ What were you supposed to say to that? Then he’d say, ‘The Duke of Walton
was in trouble over a tie for his young nephew, the Honourable Peter. The Duke is elderly, you know, and he doesn’t know what young men like today.’
Well, I thought poor old Philomena.
Personally I felt that if he was the last man in the world I would never have married him though the time was to come, believe me, when if I could have got a Fred Keatings I would have been
glad. I thought I’d had it. Once or twice I thought I was going to be on the shelf – for ever.
But nevertheless at that time when I was only sixteen I was full of hopes. I wasn’t going to marry anyone like Fred Keatings. I could see Philomena, slippers all ready for him.
‘Well, dear, what kind of day did you have today?’ And there she’d have him trotting out about who he’d served and what they’d said and the sweet smiles they’d
given him. Day after day and year after year it would go on till he got to be a floor walker. Then it would be ten times worse. That’s what I thought at the time.
But alas for Philomena it wasn’t to happen.
There they were, all set, introduced in the proper way – no picking up – making all her trousseau with her bottom drawer ready, and Fred Keatings with his eyes upon becoming a floor
walker and a model of propriety. Yet they were never to marry.
A few days after our kitchen party Fred Keatings, that model of rectitude, was arrested for indecent exposure. And that was a heinous crime in those days.
Mind you, it happened to me once or twice and I always laughed. I just couldn’t help it. It looked so funny. Nowadays they are given medical treatment but they didn’t do things like
that then. They just got put in prison. Fred was sent down for two years because it was discovered that it was his third offence.
And poor Philomena. She went right round the bend – off her head – and she had to be put into a mental home. Talk about losing your head for a man. Today people would probably take
the thing in their stride and the wedding would have happened. But then of course it was a disgrace and anyone who was disgraced became a social outcast, an untouchable. It shows too the importance
a girl attached to getting married, so that losing a boyfriend could send her out of her wits.
10
T HE NANNIES I particularly remember were from the time when I was a kitchenmaid in London. The people I worked for had a
greatest ambition was to become a floor walker. Personally I thought it was a terrible ambition.
They don’t seem to have floor walkers these days. I suppose the aisles are so full of people there wouldn’t be enough room for a floor walker to manoeuvre. But in those days with
less people around and less money around, it was more the well-to-do who patronized these kind of shops and I well remember the floor walkers in their frock coats – snootiest people
imaginable, they seemed. But they were very discerning.
They could size up a customer the minute they saw one. The deference in their manner when greeting somebody who looked as though they hadn’t a ha’penny to their name but they sensed
came from a titled family! Whereas someone smart with probably a lot of money would only get slight attention. They graded their civility according to the aristocratic position of their
customers.
To listen to Fred’s conversation you would have thought that all the nobility and gentry came up to Fred’s counter in preference to anybody else. He’d say, ‘Who do you
think I served this morning?’ Nobody cared of course but you knew that you were going to hear just the same. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘Lady Betty – now there’s a real
lady for you.’ What an unreal one was I never did find out. ‘She gave me such a sweet smile.’ What were you supposed to say to that? Then he’d say, ‘The Duke of Walton
was in trouble over a tie for his young nephew, the Honourable Peter. The Duke is elderly, you know, and he doesn’t know what young men like today.’
Well, I thought poor old Philomena.
Personally I felt that if he was the last man in the world I would never have married him though the time was to come, believe me, when if I could have got a Fred Keatings I would have been
glad. I thought I’d had it. Once or twice I thought I was going to be on the shelf – for ever.
But nevertheless at that time when I was only sixteen I was full of hopes. I wasn’t going to marry anyone like Fred Keatings. I could see Philomena, slippers all ready for him.
‘Well, dear, what kind of day did you have today?’ And there she’d have him trotting out about who he’d served and what they’d said and the sweet smiles they’d
given him. Day after day and year after year it would go on till he got to be a floor walker. Then it would be ten times worse. That’s what I thought at the time.
But alas for Philomena it wasn’t to happen.
There they were, all set, introduced in the proper way – no picking up – making all her trousseau with her bottom drawer ready, and Fred Keatings with his eyes upon becoming a floor
walker and a model of propriety. Yet they were never to marry.
A few days after our kitchen party Fred Keatings, that model of rectitude, was arrested for indecent exposure. And that was a heinous crime in those days.
Mind you, it happened to me once or twice and I always laughed. I just couldn’t help it. It looked so funny. Nowadays they are given medical treatment but they didn’t do things like
that then. They just got put in prison. Fred was sent down for two years because it was discovered that it was his third offence.
And poor Philomena. She went right round the bend – off her head – and she had to be put into a mental home. Talk about losing your head for a man. Today people would probably take
the thing in their stride and the wedding would have happened. But then of course it was a disgrace and anyone who was disgraced became a social outcast, an untouchable. It shows too the importance
a girl attached to getting married, so that losing a boyfriend could send her out of her wits.
10
T HE NANNIES I particularly remember were from the time when I was a kitchenmaid in London. The people I worked for had a
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