Bollington’s unique music and drama group for children moves into 2025 with a brand-new show about the very different lives of children around 150 years ago. Best of all, both this taster and full participation is free, with donations requested at the end of the project, thanks to the generosity of the Arts Centre which waives its feed to encourage young people to participate in innovative drama and music.
Did you know that until 1870, children didn’t have to go to school at all, and for a few years after 1870, only until they were ten?! So what did children do? Well, many went to school, especially as they were no longer allowed to work long hours in the mills. If they were clever and lucky, they could go on to grammar school and even university if they were boys!
Country children often worked on farms, and many went into domestic service, especially girls, as maids. It wasn’t just grand houses that had maids: a mark of being middle class was to be able to afford at least a maid, and maybe a cook, a gardener / handyman to do the hard work modern gadgets make easy. The bigger the house, the richer the owners, the more maids, and the more specific their duties.
Maids often lived in the house, with a tiny poky room at the top of the house. They had half a day off a week, usually Sunday afternoons after church. They would have a day off at Christmas, though often worked on Christmas Day itself. Then there was Mother’s Day, known then as Mothering Sundy, when they could visit their mothers and family for a whole day. Every other day – 363 or 364 of them – maids were up early, long before the owners, lighting the fires and boiling hot water. They would help prepare and serve meals, wash up, dust, scrub, sew, darn, wash and iron, a process described in the song Dashing away with a smoothing iron. And it dashing away with a smoothing iron that got our heroine Emily into trouble. Or rather, using too hot a flat iron on her mistress’ favourite and very expensive silk handkerchief. Burned and ruined! And costing far more to replace than Emily can afford.
So there’s only one thing for it – Emily and her younger brother who helps in the garden and allotment must work on Mother’s Day instead of going home to Bollington. Outraged and upset, the two children conspire to run away, and so embark on a perilous journey on foot, the canal, and finally the new railway to Bollington.
The Taster gives all those aged 8-13 a chance to read through the script, try out the songs, and decide whether to take part as the cast which will perform on Sunday 30 March. There are no auditions to join.
The images show the Music Theatre in Buccaneers of the Bollin (2019); as mill workers in Millennium Dreams (2000) both photographed by Donald Judge; Mom and daughter doing housework by Julie de Graag (1877-1924) (Original from the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel – a Victorian housekeeper and maid would have looked much like this) and a Victorian flat iron, from Wikipedia Commons.
Children can just turn up at 2.30 on the day with an adult to give necessary contact details. Parents are welcome to stay throughout or to return at 4.30 to collect their child. For further information or to ask any questions, please email bfmt@bollingtonartscentre.co.uk
