This is one of the most funny and delightful book I have ever read : Monica Dickens (great-granddaughter of Charles), despite her privileged upbringing and being presented at Court as a debutante, is bored and has little desire to do what is expected from a young upper class girl in the mid 1930s.
And so she decides to try her hand at domestic service :
“When I told my family that I was thinking of taking a cooking job, the roars of laughter were rather discouraging. My real interest was aroused by lessons I had at a wonderful school of French cookery in London. I went there quite unable to boil an egg and came out with Homard Thermidor and crêpes Suzettes at my fingertips ……… but still unable to boil an egg !”
This book also reflects the upstairs downstairs lives of the British class system. It is light, entertaining and the author writes so fluidly that I read more of her works like “One pair of feet” which relates her hilarious experience as a nurse during the second world war, and “My turn to make the tea“, when she worked as a provincial newspaper reporter.
Monica continued to write until her death on Christmas day 1992, aged 77.
Most of her books (second hand) are on sale on the web.
