The kitchen

… and then on to the kitchens in the aforementioned country house. High up, on a shelf – row upon row of immaculately-polished copper pans.

Now, I know how hard it is to keep such pots looking clean. Perhaps the pride and joy of my kitchen collection is a huge copper cooking pot, purchased for some outrageous sum in pre-recession days. Every time I walk past the stove, it sulks its disapproval at me beneath its dirty exterior sheen (no matter how clean I keep its insides). Sure, every few months – OK, every year or so – I take out the copper cleaning kit and polish it for hours until it gleams, all gorgeous and shiny. And then, of course, it starts to tarnish once more.

So these country house pots, so shiny and perfect? Imagine the effort that must have gone into their cleaning, by legions of serving staff. Imagine the weekly inspections, the maids lined up as the butler takes down pans at random, checks them carefully, replaces them in position. Imagine the girl’s heart a’ flutter as she awaits his verdict – a word of praise, or the request for an explanation as to “Which girl was responsible for this?” before the culprit confessed and was sent to stand in the corridor outside the kitchen door.

At the end of his tour, the butler would call the offenders into an adjoining room one by one. Punishment would be swift, summary – six strokes of the cane, doubled if the lass had been in similar trouble in recent weeks.

Of course, old traditions die hard in the great estates of England. We speculated about the sixth-form girls from the local boarding school volunteering to help in the house (charitable work always being favourably viewed by University admissions officers); polishing the pots carefully, always mindful of the old stories. And when one of them was asked to stay behind by the curator one afternoon, returning late, tear-stained, rushing straight to her study bedroom and locking the door? Clearly ancient fashioned methods still have their place and need to be upheld…