Hilda Newman & Tim Tate 
Upstairs & Downstairs 
My Life In Service as a Lady’s Maid

‘I THOUGHT I’D GONE TO A PRISON’This was Hilda Newman’s first impression when, at the age of 19, she left her parents’ little terraced cottage in Lincolnshire and embarked on a new life as a lady’s maid at Croome Court, the enormous stately home of Lord and Lady Coventry.The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gown; of tiaras and a Coronation. As personal maide to Lady Coventry, Hilda had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain’s most noble families.In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to a gilded era which would be brutally swept away by the Second World War. Hers is a very personal story of being transplanted from a tiny house with no bath or hot water to an eighteenth-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by parkland landscaped by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.But it also the remarkable story of the family who service she entered – and that of Croome Court itself: during World War Two, it housed the Dutch Royal Family – who had fled the Nazi occupation – and it was also home to the top-secret RAF base where radar was developed. This is Hilda’s story.

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Tim Tate is an award-winning documentary film maker and an author. He has produced and directed films for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Al Jazeera International, and the Discovery Channel. His work has won awards from Amnesty International, the Royal Television Society, UNESCO, The New York Festivals, the Association for International Broadcasting, and the US Cable Academy. He is the author of eight previous nonfiction books, including ‘Slave Girl.’Tim Tate is an award-winning documentary film maker and an author. He has produced and directed films for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Al Jazeera International, and the Discovery Channel. His work has won awards from Amnesty International, the Royal Television Society, UNESCO, The New York Festivals, the Association for International Broadcasting, and the US Cable Academy. He is the author of eight previous nonfiction books, including ‘Slave Girl.’ A passionate rugby spectator and coach, uncovering the secret history of women’s football has forced him to reevaluate a sport he always believed to played with the wrong-shaped ball.