Broadcaster PBS has a website devoted to “The Manor House”, a gem of a TV series that ran over here in the UK a while ago, sparking plenty of kinky ideas. The site offers a little game called “You in 1905”, explaining that you can “Get a snapshot of your life as it might have been had you been living in Britain 100 years ago. Just enter your gender and your fathers profession.”
My results:
You are a Schoolmaster!
OMG. This is cool. My wildest fantasies fulfilled. Methinks I was born a century too late! And there’s more:
A Snapshot of your life as it might have been in 1905
Education
You go to the local school in the village and then to Durham University. You’re the first person in your family to go to university.
Now that is VERY spooky, as anyone who knows me in real-life will attest.
Living Conditions
You live in a village and employ three domestic servants who live with you: a cook, a maid and a scullery maid. You believe that your wife has better things to do than household chores.
And exceptionally well-behaved servants they would be, at that. Kept firmly in line, so to speak. No shoddy standards in my house, thank you.
Marital Relations
You marry your wife when you’re 25 – she is a friend of your family and goes to the local church.
Far easier than importing them from Ukraine, eh, Haron? (I’ll be in trouble for that from my darling wife when she reads this). (And she was 25 when we married, too!).
World War One
At the outbreak of World War One you feel it’s your duty to join the army as a non-commissioned officer.
Dear readers, I would never stoop to being a non-commissioned officer.
You rise quickly to the rank of company sergeant major. You’re killed in the trenches at Ypres in 1917.
Yikes. That suddenly got sobering.
Hell I’m a servant! Here’s a highlight though:
“You’re often ticked off for insubordination – the senior servants think you’re cocky.”
Ah well, at least I live longer than Abel! Unfortunately I live my life out in a workhouse, with no hope of getting married, because I got knocked up at the by a footman at the country house where I was employed as a servant. This is entertaining though.
Apparently I live alone, never marry, and have a private income. So, mostly the same life I’m living in present day minus the sewing, flower arranging, and living with a fellow spinster friend. A question though, doesn’t living with a spinster friend sort of negate *living alone*?
I want to know where I can collect my two worthless servants though. Even shoddy work is better than me having to do the cleaning myself!
I don’t work and have a private income, I’m also unmarried and seemingly have no fun whatsoever, so I’m going to give my income to a good cause and get a job with Megs so that I canbe ticked off for insubordination, much more fun than my solitary life with buckets of cash!
‘You manage to get repetitive manual work but sometimes you wonder whether it would be easier to follow your mother into prostitution.’ LOL! Or should I feel insulted?
I’m apparently a conservative lady of leisure. Feh!
o0o
Education
You’re taught by a governess in the schoolroom at home until you’re 15 years old. You’re then taken travelling around Europe where you meet your husband during the London season.
Career Prospects
At 18, you come out as a debutante and are presented to the King. During the day, you support your husband and spend time with the children. You pour scorn on female friends of yours who you think are becoming too “political”. You regard this an activity for men not women and don’t have any patience with the suffragette women who are being arrested.
Leisure Time
While in London for the season you spend time shopping in new department stores to buy clothes for the receptions, dinners and dances that you go to. You love going to the theatre, particularly to see the plays of Bernard Shaw.
Living Conditions
You live in the house your husband has inherited from his parents. Although the house is large it’s filled by ten servants, the children and friends who come to stay for weekend house parties.
Marital Relations
You marry your husband when you’re 20 and suspect he’s not always as devoted to you as you are to him.
o0o
This was my great-great grandmother’s life. It speaks volumes about why they left England for California in 1870. Though the governess part could have been fun!
Mija: Well the leisure time sounds all right….
Yeah, don’t complain! I ended up in a workhouse with a baby to take care of! I think the lesson we’re intended to take away from this is to be grateful we’re not alive in 1905. Good thing my grandpa was too young to go to war or I probably wouldn’t be here!
Mine started fairly crap -I leave school at 11 to make boxes, and my only pleasures in life are saving enough money to buy a bike and some fish’n chips; one rung up the ladder, i’m in service boarding in work premises in a dirty, cramped dormitory with a severe system of “fines” for every minor offence…ho hum…oh and I up never marrying, discussing women’s rights in the dormitory and having an abortion. Groovey. One more rung up and i’m a secretary -now you’re talking!! I get 2 servants + become a local councillor, but one of my babies dies. 2nd from the top, I live alone and have a private income. Under living conditions, its come up verbatim with: You employ two servants who live in your house but are unimpressed with the quality of their work. How DO they come up with this stuff. And lastly, for the top step of social status- available to someone with my father’s job- I am the wife of a landowner -Hello Mr Darcy!!!- At 18, I come out as a debutante and am presented to the King -who if i’m not mistaken, was at the time HM
“Dirty Berty”. We have friends over for weekend house parties ooOH that ‘ud be nice -Canasta anyone? Or maybe we’ll forget about cards this evening…- Only 10 servants though, which seems a little miserly for the size of house (with all that privacy) described. Marital Relations: I suspect he’s not always as devoted to me as I am to him. Well! We’ll soon see about that!!
Abel: That is kind of spooky isn’t it! The Durham Unversity has a Centre of Cricketing Excellence, which would tie right in with your interests and (no doubt) excellent skills.
That’s rather intersting, mine result had some similarities to my present life as well.
Also, I love the thought of you as a schoolmaster