Letter 25
02/03/23 14:33
My Dearest Bunty,
What a busy time we have had on the Estate in the last days. As soon as the advertisement for jobs went up in some local Employment Exchanges, they were on the phone to us with lists of names, some of which had worked here before but most of them never. It has been a challenge for us to sift through the applicants I can tell you and Catriona the sturdy estate manager and New Cook have been well satisfied with the potential employees for their respective areas. Cook has taken on some of the school canteen ladies for July and August and thinks she will be able to survive the late summer on her own. I have to agree as most of our visitors come in that period, avoiding the area when the midges get too much. What dreadful creatures they are! I have of course been left with the bulk of the applicants: those to work as guides, serving food and arranging the parking. I am sure I have not been lucky in getting the cream of the local unemployed I can tell you.
This was confirmed with the first group of applicants. We decided it was better to interview them in a group, give them some tests in basic English, arithmetic and then to chat in a group to see who were the brightest and to weed out potential grumblers. I well remember years ago employing a young man to take the car parking fees. He was a most miserable sort and not the face I wanted to greet my paying visitors I can tell you! I believe he gave up his position mid way through the season to go for a job as an actor of all things. I hope he gets comic roles, just to see a smile cross his face from time to time!
Our first group of applicants was a fairly mixed bunch. Some of them have had older siblings who have worked on the Estate before and were quite aware of what is in store for them. Some of the girls were most polite, but experience tells me that they can be the most trouble as they spend most of the day arranging dates with the most unsuitable element form the local village and come in to work looking the worst for wear - if they arrive at all! I was pleasantly surprised at how respectable the young men looked at the interview - not a facial piercing to be seen. That is what I had hoped for, although some of their hair could do with a good beaten egg wash or even a proper cut. I remember Daddy taking dear departed Alexander for his end of summer haircut at the Court Barbers in Jermyn Street in London before he returned to Eton. That was always a special treat for Alexander as the afternoon was often rounded off with tea in the Peers' Dining Rooms at my Beloved House of Lords. Who could have imagined that Alexander would only have his seat for the shortest of times after Daddy passed?
Well the arithmetic and English tests were fairly simple, and all passed through that I can say. It is good to see that some remnant of the Good Scottish Education still exists here in the North East, as I read in the occasional Scotsman (when no Telegraph is available) that the Central Belt suffers from a great decline in the basic education that young people need to equip them for the workplace. What a shame! That would never have happened if Scotland produced an army of school madams in the mould of the Nanny I had as a child - or indeed of the strict ladies we had during our time at Cheltenham!
The boys are quite happy to hear that there is going to be a uniform. I expect they need to keep their hooded sweatshirts and saggy denims for impressing the young girls in the village late into the evenings. What a young lady these days sees in an untailored, callow youth I shall never know. It seems slightly disrespectful in my view and downright rude for a man of any age to display the tops of his underwear. I was quite alarmed when I saw that coming onto fashion on one of the cable channels. A lady should have no idea about the neither garments of the male until after the wedding night. Oh I sound so pompous writing that, but you get my drift.
Yours as always, Flora
This story first appeared on www.panetwork.co.uk in 2004
What a busy time we have had on the Estate in the last days. As soon as the advertisement for jobs went up in some local Employment Exchanges, they were on the phone to us with lists of names, some of which had worked here before but most of them never. It has been a challenge for us to sift through the applicants I can tell you and Catriona the sturdy estate manager and New Cook have been well satisfied with the potential employees for their respective areas. Cook has taken on some of the school canteen ladies for July and August and thinks she will be able to survive the late summer on her own. I have to agree as most of our visitors come in that period, avoiding the area when the midges get too much. What dreadful creatures they are! I have of course been left with the bulk of the applicants: those to work as guides, serving food and arranging the parking. I am sure I have not been lucky in getting the cream of the local unemployed I can tell you.
This was confirmed with the first group of applicants. We decided it was better to interview them in a group, give them some tests in basic English, arithmetic and then to chat in a group to see who were the brightest and to weed out potential grumblers. I well remember years ago employing a young man to take the car parking fees. He was a most miserable sort and not the face I wanted to greet my paying visitors I can tell you! I believe he gave up his position mid way through the season to go for a job as an actor of all things. I hope he gets comic roles, just to see a smile cross his face from time to time!
Our first group of applicants was a fairly mixed bunch. Some of them have had older siblings who have worked on the Estate before and were quite aware of what is in store for them. Some of the girls were most polite, but experience tells me that they can be the most trouble as they spend most of the day arranging dates with the most unsuitable element form the local village and come in to work looking the worst for wear - if they arrive at all! I was pleasantly surprised at how respectable the young men looked at the interview - not a facial piercing to be seen. That is what I had hoped for, although some of their hair could do with a good beaten egg wash or even a proper cut. I remember Daddy taking dear departed Alexander for his end of summer haircut at the Court Barbers in Jermyn Street in London before he returned to Eton. That was always a special treat for Alexander as the afternoon was often rounded off with tea in the Peers' Dining Rooms at my Beloved House of Lords. Who could have imagined that Alexander would only have his seat for the shortest of times after Daddy passed?
Well the arithmetic and English tests were fairly simple, and all passed through that I can say. It is good to see that some remnant of the Good Scottish Education still exists here in the North East, as I read in the occasional Scotsman (when no Telegraph is available) that the Central Belt suffers from a great decline in the basic education that young people need to equip them for the workplace. What a shame! That would never have happened if Scotland produced an army of school madams in the mould of the Nanny I had as a child - or indeed of the strict ladies we had during our time at Cheltenham!
The boys are quite happy to hear that there is going to be a uniform. I expect they need to keep their hooded sweatshirts and saggy denims for impressing the young girls in the village late into the evenings. What a young lady these days sees in an untailored, callow youth I shall never know. It seems slightly disrespectful in my view and downright rude for a man of any age to display the tops of his underwear. I was quite alarmed when I saw that coming onto fashion on one of the cable channels. A lady should have no idea about the neither garments of the male until after the wedding night. Oh I sound so pompous writing that, but you get my drift.
Yours as always, Flora
This story first appeared on www.panetwork.co.uk in 2004