National Trust: The Secret Diary of Jane Pinny, Victorian House Maid

By Philip Ardagh and Jamie Littler

Facts meet fiction in this exciting, intricate Victorian detective story!

Jane Pinny has moved to the very grand Lytton House to be a Maid Of All Work. And being a Maid Of All Work means that she has to do... well, ALL the work, obviously! Cleaning, dusting, scrubbing, washing - there's SO much to do in a Victorian country house. But when a priceless jade necklace belonging to the lady of the house disappears, Jane turns accidental detective (with the help of her best friend, a pigeon called Plump...) - can she solve the mystery of the missing jewels before it's too late?

Perfect for fans of Horrible Histories, filled with amazing facts and historical trivia, with an exciting story and brilliant illustrations, you won't be able to put this SECRET DIARY down!

Read the other books in the series:

The Secret Diary of John Drawbridge, Medieval Knight in Training

The Secret Diary of Thomas Snoop, Tudor Boy Spy

The Secret Diary of Kitty Cask, Smuggler's Daughter

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nosy Crow Ltd
• Release date: Sep 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9780857639042

Philip Ardagh

Roald Dahl Funny Prize-winning author Philip Ardagh is the author of The Grunts and National Trust: The Secret Diary series. He is probably best known for his Grubtown Tales, but he is author of over 100 books. He is a "regular irregular" reviewer of children's books for The Guardian, and is currently developing a series for television. Philip Ardagh is two metres tall with a ridiculously big, bushy beard and size sixteen feet, making him an instantly recognisable figure at literary festivals around the world.

Book preview

This morning, I was talking to Plump, the big, fat pigeon what lives on the ledge outside me bedroom window, and he says I should keep a diary.

What, me? I says.

Yes you, he says.

But I’m just a maid, I says.

You’re a human being, he says and gives me one of them head-bobbing pigeon stares that you can’t argue with.

So what? I says. Everyone’s a human being.

Then Plump gives me another one of them stares.

Sorry, I says, but you knows what I mean. There ain’t nothing special about me.

You are someone who’s not satisfied with your lot, says Plump. You’re a girl going places.

I’ll still be just a maid, I remind him.

You’re friends with a talking pigeon, ain’t you? says Plump, now pacing up and down his ledge. Don’t that make you special?

I smile. I suppose it does, I says. But I still can’t write no diary.

Why not? he says.

’Cause I can’t write much more than me name, I says.

Plump tilts his pigeon head to one side, like he always does when he’s having a really SERIOUS think. I have an idea, Jane, he says. A bloomin’ brilliant idea.

(He calls me Jane ’cause that’s me name: Jane Pinny.)

What? I says.

You tell me what to write and I’ll write it for you, he says.

I laughs. Pigeons can’t write, Plump! I says.

Pigeons can’t talk neither, can they? he says, but that ain’t stopped me.

True, I agree.

So you’ll keep a diary. Deal? he says.

Deal, I says. And I ain’t about to break my word to me bestest friend.¹

1 Plump’s grammar was far from perfect, so we suggest you don’t write the way he did!

Dear Diary,

Is that what I’m supposed to say – Dear Diary?

I dunno. But that’s what Tommy the butcher’s boy told me when he brought the meat² – I didn’t make no mention of a talking-writing pigeon, of course, or I might end up in the madhouse – and it’s as good a way to start as any. So here goes:

Dear Diary,

My name is Jane Pinny – I think I’ve already said that – and I am about to have an interview to become a maid in a big house in the country, which is why me feathery friend reckons I should keep this diary. I’ve been a maid here in the town for two years but it’s about time I move on³.

I has a friend, Mary, what already works in Lytton House, which is the house I were talking about, and she’s recommended me to Mrs McNamara the housekeeper. That means they won’t have to advertise or go to a registry office⁴, which’ll save them a bob⁵ or two. (Rich folk don’t half like saving money!). ’Cause their ain’t no registry office for me to meet Mrs McNamara in and she won’t give me no job without meeting me first, I have to be at Lytton House tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock (it being me half day⁶). Today, I have to do me usual chores for Mrs Berry.

Being a Maid Of All Work, I does just about everything. I think the name says it all: a-l-l w-o-r-k. I do all the work! I clean. And cleaning means: dusting everywhere, scrubbing floors, walls, tables, tiles, steps and stairs. Beating carpets. Washing clothes, sheets and curtains. Blacking the range.⁷ Washing the pots and pans and plates. I even bring up the coal from the coal cellar, which makes smuts and blacks⁸ seem like nothing.

You name it, I does it.

Except cook.

Mrs Berry has Mrs Hansard, the cook, do that for her, but that’s not to say I haven’t chopped every vegetable you can imagine and then some. But Mrs Hansard has never let me boil so much as a pan of water. (I reckon she’s worried I’d find it a lot easier than she tries to make out. Even I can’t burn water.)

I’m up before six and in bed after ten, but Mrs Berry has always been nothing but kind to me, and the one time in me life when I was ill, she sent me straight to bed and had Mrs Hansard bring me soup. That’s something that Mrs Hansard has never forgiven me for, what with her being Cook and me being nothing but a maid-of-all-work and her waiting on me like a lady. But who’d have brought it to me if not her? Certainly not Mrs Berry herself.

(I’m not sure if there IS a Mr Berry, dear diary. I means, there must have been once, but not in the two years I’ve been here, and no one ever talks of him. Maybe he was an axe-murderer. Or very borin’. Or even a very borin’ axe-murderer.)

I’m a bit nervous about tomorrow, I am, but I do think it’s time to move on and up in the world. I