Impact0619

Her Ladyship’s Girl
by Anwyn Moyle
It’s 1934 and we first meet
16-year-old Anwyn, a girl
from a small Welsh mining
village, on her first day as a
scullery maid, or skivvy, in
a large house in Hampstead in
London.
Through her we are introduced
to ‘the good, the bad and the
ugly’ who make up the staff and
the family of the big house as
she struggles to get to grips with
her duties and life in general,
downstairs as well as upstairs.
Then we go back in time to
Llangynwyd, where Anwyn was
born, to a small back-to-back
terraced house in the shadow
of the slagheaps. There was
appalling poverty and sickness,
and life was grim. She worked
hard but was an avid reader. “I
realised there was more to life
than drudgery and more to the
world than Wales,” she said and,
after leaving school at 14, she
took on a menial job in a hat shop
in the nearest town where she
observed the wealthier wives
of coal managers and took an
interest in fashion.
Back in London, Anwyn
continues her work in the
scullery but, an ‘encounter’ with
the master of the house leads
to her dismissal and a growing
awareness of what life is really
like. She decides to raise her
sights, applies for a post as
a lady’s maid and is, to her
surprise, successful.
Now she enters a whole new
world in Belgravia and becomes
her new mistress’s companion.
No longer an ignorant country
girl, though still a little naïve,
she learns quickly and becomes
more sophisticated day by day.
Unlike her mistress, she reads
newspapers every day and
realises that
women are
starting to
become more
independent.
Europe is in
turmoil after
the First
World War
and the rise
of the new
right-wing
politics.
These are
the days of
Hitler and
later the
Spanish
Civil War
but, within
the high society in which she now
moves, no-one cares – there are
debutante balls, Royal Ascot, the
opera and other more important
pastimes for them.
Anwyn tells of a multitude of
‘adventures’ but, deep down, all
she wants is to become a strong,
independent women with her own
life and her own income.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading
this extraordinary woman’s
autobiography. You’ll discover
some very surprising things about
her as her story unfolds, not least
that she lived to the grand old
age of 94.
What a life – and what a
woman!
Chris Laude
Chris is a member of St
Chad’s Third Age Book Group
Book Review
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