A History of Private Life - Mistress and Servants

Historian Amanda Vickery presents a series which reveals the hidden history of home over 400 years. She draws on first-hand accounts from letters and diaries, many of which have never been heard before. Including songs which have been specially recorded for the series. The fascinating household diaries of Elizabeth Shackleton, trying to run a house in Lancashire with a floating population of unreliable and drunken servants. Elizabeth cared for a young serving girl, and treated her like the daughter she never had. But the girl turned on her, and abandoned her. Readers: Deborah Findlay, John Sessions, Madeleine Brolly and Simon Tcherniak. Singers: Gwyneth Herbert and Thomas Guthrie, with David Owen Norris at the keyboard. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.