Over the summer holidays, I visited Audley End House and Gardens with a bunch of kids. In the converted horse stables, a series of short video clips was playing that transfixed us all. Actors were dressed up as employees that worked on the grounds – from gardeners, to butlers, to farmers – and in turn they described what their job involved and a bit about their personal lives too. The range of roles was broad, and the lifestyles they led were so varied.
Different as they were, they all bore some similarities though: their working hours were long and the labour was hard, but there was stability and job satisfaction.
Inside the house, we got a sense of the lavish lifestyle that the lords and ladies these people served would have enjoyed, and the privileged indulgence the children of the house would have experienced in the nursery and grounds.
Perhaps people didn’t have the luxury of considering their sense of “balance” in those days. But in hindsight, who do you imagine enjoyed the best work-life balance of them all? Would you have rather lived and worked “upstairs” or “downstairs”?
