Spanking the Maid

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Neagle and Wilcox brought the play to the screen under the title Lilacs in the Spring (1954), co-starring Errol Flynn.

Could it be attributed to the way in which the governess has been portrayed in fiction and film - as a stereotype of a generally impoverished woman, neither servant nor family member, yet who constantly emerges as the heroine, often escaping a prim middle-age by marrying the local curate or the master of the house? In 1937 Anna Neagle gave her most prestigious performance so far – as Queen Victoria in the successful historical drama Victoria the Great (1937), co-starring Anton Walbrook as Prince Albert. I’ve told you before to be careful and stay out of things your nose doesn’t belong in, but you won’t listen! She earned critical accolades in both productions, despite the fact that she had never before done any Shakespeare. Turning her head, she sees the slice poking its golden brown top out of the gleaming silvered toaster.

To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients. She felt her face flush, embarrassed to be exposed like this in front of her sister, let alone for such a humiliating reason. And outside the fictional context were people like Theresa Berkley (see The Flagellation Brothels of Old London by Februs in Vol. Rollin's serial The Mills Governess has an unusual sci-fi element as Gordon Mills designs a machine to take him back in time. Channel 4 series The Great details the royal marriage of empress Catherine and husband Peter III, whom she overthrew in a coup d'etat.

It was a Saturday evening, St Valentine’s Day 1970, when William Jellett first thought he might be Jesus. Such women acting out the role of a strict governess made a good living by administering vigorous discipline to their clients. You’ll be sleeping on your stomach tonight, I’m sure” She said, wincing at Waverly’s pained expression. All of the above, plus other similar themed stories help to maintain an interest and fascination for the traditional Victorian governess.

First we have Becky Sharpe in William Thackeray's Vanity Fair; and later that same year was published Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Although Neagle performed several musical numbers for the film, most of them were cut from the final release, leaving her with essentially a supporting role. You sir, are no gentleman," she hissed, "to force a lady to strip almost naked, like a common trollop! She pulled her arm back and whipped it back down, the crack of leather on skin echoing around the room.

After a busy morning working at her desk, painting some interior designs for one of a flurry of new clients since the publication of her interiors for ‘Chi and Treth’, the country residence of her friends Dickie and Margot Channon, in the periodical ‘Country Life’*, Lettice prepares to curl up in one of her armchairs and enjoy the latest edition of Vogue whilst taking a reviving cup of tea provided to her in her favourite Art Deco teaset by her maid, Edith, when the telephone rings noisily on the occasional table beside her.There are some more muffled cries and some more volleys of sharp barking before things go quiet again. She essayed the role of the true-lifenurse who was shot by the Germans in World War I for alleged spying. Not surprisingly, when the master of the manor has an uncle who is a wealthy noble, an actual titled Baron, who occupies an ancestral stone castle just across the moors, located on the highest cliff in the area, overlooking a dark ocean. Neagle and Syms worked together again on No Time For Tears (1957), also starring Anthony Quayle and Flora Robson.