Previously in this series.
You grow up in a family that is aristocratic, but on such a limited budget as to be able to employ no more than a cook, a parlor-maid, a housemaid, a kitchen maid, a nanny and a nursemaid. The family pays for the nanny by keeping a flock of several hundred chickens and selling the eggs in town. Other budgeting measures include an absolute ban on the use of dinner napkins.
You spend hours in the chicken house learning to do an exact imitation of a hen’s expression when it lays an egg.
Your father is hilariously witty, but prone to frightening rages. You participate in the favorite family game of “child hunt,” in which the children run and hide in the fields, until caught by the hound.
Later, your father bitterly denounces all of your male friends as “damned puppies” and “young swine.” Once, he picks up an admirer and shakes him like a rat. When you dare to wear trousers at home, your father becomes apoplectic with rage. You nickname your father the Feudal Remnant.
Your mother does not allow any vaccinations or medicone of any kind; bedroom windows must always be kept open six inches, even in the dead of winter. Although you are very near-sighted, your mother forbids glasses, saying that your body will heal itself, and “you’ll probably be able to see more as time goes on.”
Your uncle writes letters to the paper expounding his theory that England’s decline is due to a reduction in the use of manure in farming.
Read more How To Tell If You Are A Mitford Sister at The Toast.