"On 6 August 1918, Rosina Harrison left her Yorkshire home for London, to take her first job as a lady s maid. Eleven years later, she was offered the post of personal maid to Nancy, Lady Astor- an American expatriate, the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat and wife of one of England's wealthiest lords. The spirited Lady Astor was a highly demanding employer, and Rose's job was not easy. Six or seven changes of clothes - from sporting clothes, to sober parliamentary suits, to ball gowns - had to be ready and waiting every day, jewellery worth a small fortune was taken to and from the bank, and domestic details efficiently managed with the assistance of the other servants. Rose lived in a world that we can only dream about today, and her memoir evokes a stunning fairytale vision of liveried footmen, private greenhouses bursting with out-of-season fruit and flowers, and small parties for 750 with Winston Churchill and George Bernard Shaw passing through. u003cbu003eu003ciu003eMy Life in Serviceu003c/iu003eu003c/bu003eis a fascinating insight into lives both upstairs and down, but it is Rose s stormy relationship (and eventually lively friendship) with Lady Astor that makes this book a truly exc