Betty Upton – A working life at Holkham in the 1940s

April 2, 2020 | Garden goss | 2 minute read

When Betty Upton left school in the early 1940s she followed in her father’s footsteps and began working at Holkham. Her father, Reuben Upton, was the electrician in the hall after WWI, but Betty had other interests and worked in a variety of roles including the kitchen, still room and later the gardens.

Betty shared many memories of her time at Holkham, revealing some wonderful methods used in days gone by of accomplishing day-to-day tasks. She mentioned scouring the big copper stock pot with a mixture of sand and vinegar, and her colleague Ethel making cakes and jam in the lower still room where she could be contacted from upstairs via a ‘speaking tube’- a pre-cursor to the radios we use at Holkham today!

Betty then joined the Land Army and moved to the gardens, a job which she very much preferred. She got stuck into all sorts of gardening work, picking the dessert fruit and arranging it in a large basket to be delivered to the hall.

Can you guess what Betty is doing in our picture? She is impersonating a bee! Betty is pollinating nectarines using a rabbit’s tail on the end of a long cane. Unlike the speaking tube, this innovation has stood the test of time and is still used by our gardeners and volunteers to this day.

A volunteer continuing to use this simple but effective method of pollination

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