Reading and speaking Life Downstairs
A housemaid worked very long hours and only had half a day off each week. Rosanna had to start work at 5:00 am in order to clean and light the fires before the family of the house woke up. Then she laid the table for breakfast while other servants took Rachel and her mother cups of tea and helped them to get dressed. After the family had finished breakfast, the servants would eat theirs downstairs in the servants' hall. This was usually a plain room with simple wooden furniture. The food "downstairs" was basic, not the rich food from the "upstairs" dining room.

After breakfast Rosanna would clean the rooms, serve meals and be "on call" whenever she was needed. Her day would end after she had served evening tea at about 9:30 pm. She might sit in the servants' hall to play cards or chat for a while before going to bed. Servants had little private life or free time of their own, so they were interested in everything that happened "upstairs" and would gossip about the family and their guests.

Despite the hard work required of them, servants were paid very little, and there were some families who treated their servants badly. However, in many houses the servants had great affection for the "upstairs" family, and felt part of a "downstairs" family too. Most servants had a safe environment to work in, plenty of food and a clean bed to sleep in. This was very different from the dirt and poverty that thousands of unemployed people were living in at the time. It was also different from the dangerous conditions in many of the factories. In fact, a lot of people thought that working as a servant for a kind family was a good job.