Servile Genes

On my fiftieth birthday I was treated  to a murder mystery weekend at M.... Hall. Thirteen of my extended family turned up in costume and in character to a nineteenth century stately home where we progressed from 4 o'clock scones and jam through to a silver service dinner (with murder) and eventually to a country house breakfast the next day.My brother played the overweight middleaged roue' with a taste for fine wine and  daughter-of-mine played the buxom tart with the heart of gold. Neither of them had to do much acting.

Mine host , who played variously the curator, the butler and the policeman (there was obviously a limited budget) narrated the story of the original inhabitants. In the nineteenth century, he told us, no fewer than 15 servants and laborers spent all their  time looking after the needs of one small family and that family themselves never did a stroke of work." Fancy that" we marvelled as we were obviously meant to.

Hang on a minute though I thought. I pictured in my mind the typical "heartsink"family. Husband on the disability pension (for back pain); wife on a carer's pension; two kids on the dole; three more kids at various stages of schooling - one on with a social services case worker , one with respite out of hours care .   Housing trust home , domiciliary care housework occasionally, mental health workers, GP, Physiotherapist and several sets of specialist medical  services(chronic pain , respiratory (for the smoking related diseases) cardiology (ditto) and perhaps endocrine (for the diabetes  and morbid obesity)) involved. None of the family have done a stroke of work for years .We all basically exist to service them.

Then I had another thought. A hundred years ago it was MY ancestors getting up at six in the morning to light the fires so the old master could get up comfortably at nine. Now it is me getting up at six in the morning to travel to work to be ready to see Husband Above (often to get a DNA (*did not attend).(They will sometimes ring later in the day to explain that it was just too hard to get in at that hour and could they have another appointment only later in the day).

It is obvious . I have servile genes.In the great genetic programming my family got parlourmaid. Nothing has changed but the job title. And the pay thank God.