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Chesham Stories

Christie Mulkern: Bootboy in Chesham Bois

At the age of eleven I got a job as a bootboy at a large house in Chesham Bois. My employers were a family called Hollyoak who had recently returned to England from Hong Kong. They had two daughters, a cook, a housemaid and a very tall Chinese nanny. I had to have permission to work and carried a card issued by the Education Committee under the Employment of Children Act. My duties included cleaning all the family's boots and shoes, filling the coal scuttles and log boxes and cleaning all the cutlery in a rotary knife cleaner into which a brown powder had to be poured. I would start from home in Bois Moor Road around 6.30 and walk through Bois Wood. The only thing I liked about this job was that I was given a hearty breakfast - porridge, boiled or scrambled egg on toast, and tea - things I could never expect at home. I went straight from school in the evening for two more hours. Walking home across Chesham Bois Common and down Bois Lane on a dark winter evening was quite scary.

Another source of income was delivering brush backs, bristles and wire from the brush factories to people who worked from home. For a few coppers we swept up snow from the paths of the wealthy in Chesham Bois. In the late summer we collected acorns and sold them to pig farmers for feed. We also bought large bundles of watercress from local beds, made them up into small bundles and sold them for a profit to the neighbours. We picked raspberries and blackberries in season and sold them round the houses.

Christie Mulkern, 1907-2001

[Christie also went 'wooding' in a home-made contraption, and 'dunging' for manure to sell to gardeners.]

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