Miners Domestic Service Factory Women Office Life Steel Workers Ship Building Women in Service Starting work at 8 years old was common among the working classes up until the First World War. Domestic service was the biggest employer of women and young girls who were forced into a world of scrubbing floors and endless washing, for low pay and little life of their own. The pecking order Former domestic servants recall how the hierarchy below stairs was as strict as it was upstairs. Other People's babies Traditional British nannies remember their 'calling' to look after other people's children, often with little time off and no life of their own.
Modern nannies describe how their role has changed over the years.
They talk frankly about their employers, and their role and place in the household. The West Coast of Scotland, for years, was inundated with immigrant fishermen. Relationships with the locals were forged and shelves in shops were cleared by the fishermen who took the loot back to their less well-stocked home countries in Eastern Europe. Fishing Tragedies Scottish fishermen remember disasters when whole communities were decimated by fishing tragedies. So dangerous was life as a Scottish fishermen that the industry was full of superstition and ritual - including getting their wives to throw slippers at them as they left the house, not getting their hair cut on a Monday, not whistling and not sailing if they saw a red headed woman.