Our fascination with societies and households united by social, class and occupational division continues unabated. The popularity of Downton Abbey , Upstairs Downstairs and Gosford Park bears testimony to this. But how much do we really know about the true experiences of domestic servants and the conditions in which they lived?

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No Job for a Little Girl by Rosemary Scadden is based on interviews with those women who had to leave home in the 1920s and 1930s – some when they were as young as fourteen years old – to work as low-paid maids in the big cities.

Domestic service was Britain''s biggest employer a century ago with 1.5 million people working as servants – more than those who worked on farms or in factories. In a period where there were very few opportunities for young women, many had to leave home in search of work. And, as No Job for a Little Girl proves, the young girls of Wales were no exception.

The women’s own words bring an immediacy and vibrancy to the memoir. Their experiences highlight how much chance played in their conditions of service. Their precise duties and personal feelings are described, bringing to life a forgotten world of deference and social immobility. Ironically, it was the outbreak of the Second World War that transformed the lives of this lost generation of women.

O riginally from Newport, Rosemary Scadden lives in Cardiff, where she was for many years a programme researcher with both HTV and BBC Wales. She was involved in the landmark oral history series, All Our Lives,and worked with Sir Harry Secombe for eight years on Highway. Rosemary also spent twelve years working overseas, in Uganda and the Solomon Islands. Since her retirement she has become a popular speaker on many subjects and is an active member of the Women’s Archive of Wales.

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No Job for a Little Girl is available from all good bookshops and online retailers.

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For more information, please visit www.gomer.co.uk

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