For Downton Abbey Fans

Servants' Hall is a collection of stories that follows the life of the author in her years of domestic service in post WWI England. Margaret starts life as a kitchen maid and ends her tenure as Cook, having worked at several different homes in the years of her service. Along the way, she encounters several odd, lively personalities and has a few adventures with both guests and employers. Of particular interest in Margaret's friend Rose, who marries the son of the household in which she serves, setting her on a path she has no idea how to maintain. Margaret and her friend Mary attempt to stay in touch with the hapless Rose after her marriage and the results clearly show the problems in marrying "out of your station" during those days.

Margaret writes in a clear, engaging style that brings the reader into a world gone by and sheds light on how life was lived below stairs. Having not read her previous book, I was enthralled with how things were and impressed by the command of the language someone "in service" had when writing. I definitely want to pick up anything else the author may have written; she definitely had a way with words and her stories, while possibly embellished, were filled with the human-ness of the life of a servant. Relatively short, this book is a great read and fans of the time period will love seeing how the real folks lived.

~taminator40