In Service
To know one's place
I might have dreamed of a place at the table after the womenfolk had withdrawn, to pass the port and savour cigars, debating matters of great import: the state of affairs, the stock market, war, the challenge of running the family estate, the folly of politicians. I would, of course, have been below stairs washing the dishes from that grand dinner borne to me by footmen in livery, handsomely groomed in their uniforms, one of whom might have caught my eye to ignite a more realistic flame, an achievable family mission. *** Our twenty-first century dining room’s cleared after Christmas, the family all dispersed to a new year of meetings and planning and calls about targets and clients and goals and promotions. I wonder whether they know we are servants to temporal lords who direct us all or if they believe the illusion.
Beauty! Downtown Abbey a century later.
Highest quality throughout ... and the final three lines are the cherry on top.
Your poem took me back to my Granny Eliza Jones, who was in Service as a cook in a big house in Eaton Square, the original Mrs Bridges. I remember her twisted, mangled fingers from years of toil. My Grandad Fred Jones was the shoe repairer and would pick up the shoes from the kitchen where they met. I wonder if he had to ask Hudson, the butler, for permission to court her.