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.