Cocoa at Midnight

Praise for the Lives of Servants - Various

Reading this fascinating book is likely to unleash anyone’s inner Bolshevik…! - Daily Mail

…a fascinating portrait of the drudgery and servility of a domestic’s life. - The Age

…captures the subtelties of the English class system to an extraordinary degree. - Midstate Observer

If the Brothers Grimm had ended Cinderella where she was being forced to clean the house by her stepsisters, they might have accidentally been writing Rose Plummer’s biography. The maid’s story makes for harsh, heartbreaking, fascinating reading. - The Daily Telegraph, NZ

Kathleen Clifford was born in a West London slum in 1909. Her family lived from hand to mouth in rented rooms near Paddington Station. At school she dreamed of working in Whiteleys, a glamorous department store, but instead she worked in service. After she retired from service Kathleen returned to Paddington - and got that job in Whiteleys! Kathleen Clifford died in 1989.

Tom Quinn is the editor of the Country Landowner’s Magazine. He has written several small books for small independent publishers. He has spent the last twenty years interviewing people who worked in domestic service, getting them to tell him their life stories.