CHINNOCK - A BUTLER'S STORY (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

WILFRED CHINNOCK tells of his years as butler in the household of a press baron, the first Lord Rothermere. Life among the aristocracy of the 1930s is vividly described in this ‘upstairs, downstairs’ tale of a of a young man cast into a world so very different from his modest Somerset upbringing. He tells of how he was chosen, at the age of fourteen, to go alone to London to take up a post on the staff of the Windham Club in St James’s. We follow him on his many adventures until he meets Lord Rothermere who appoints him to the position of butler, to live and work in great houses in London, Norfolk and Scotland and we hear of some of the treasures that adorned his workplace. Among the many famous personalities Mr Chinnock met were Lord Beaverbrook, Winston Churchill, Herr von Ribbentrop, David Lloyd-George and Princess Stephanie Hohenlohe. He once said: “My story reads like a fairytale. People say it didn’t really happen but it did. It was our life.”WILFRED CHINNOCK penned the manuscript for this book in the 1980s with the intention that it should be published. His efforts were thwarted and he died in 1994 with the project not completed. In 2009, his son-in-law, Peter Edmonds, decided, on re-reading the story, to attempt publication. With this in mind he set about editing the original manuscript. As a result, his research led him to many interesting facts and stories. He found it tempting to add these to Mr Chinnock’s writings but, as they are all in the public domain he has left it to the reader to do his own research! Wilfred Chinnock served as a driver with the Royal Army Service Corps during the war and was on the first convoy that entered the liberated Berlin. He pursued a career in domestic service and catering after the war, firstly in Derbyshire and then, on moving to Bognor Regis, at the Clarehaven Hotel. In the 1950s, he and his wife ran the Primrose Café next to the Picturedrome. He spent the remainder of his working life with Hago and Lec Refrigeration.