The Servant Problem

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton

Arts, Books

4.9 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How the interwar servant shortage changed detective fiction. This episode marked the beginning of the Shedunnit Pledge Drive. Support the podcast by joining the Shedunnit Book Club and get extra Shedunnit episodes every month plus access to the monthly reading discussions and community: shedunnitbookclub.com/pledgedrive. Books mentioned in this episode:— Mrs Woolf and the Servants by Alison Light— The Psychology of the Servant Problem by Violet M Firth— Trent's Last Case by EC Bentley— The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie— "The Invisible Man" by G.K. Chesterton, collected in The Innocence of Father Brown— Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie— "Miss Marple Tells a Story" by Agatha Christie, collected in Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories— The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie— "The Case of the Perfect Maid" by Agatha Christie, collected in Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories— "The Dream" by Agatha Christie, collected in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories— "Greenshaw's Folly" by Agatha Christie, collected in Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories— The Wintringham Mystery by Anthony Berkeley— Why Shoot A Butler? by Georgette Heyer— Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin— The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers— Who Killed the Curate? by Joan Coggin— The Hollow by Agatha Christie— A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie— Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie— After the Funeral by Agatha Christie— A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie— 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie— Simisola by Ruth Rendell NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the autumn of 1919, Agatha Christie left Torquay and travelled by train to London.
0:09.7	She had given birth to her daughter Rosalind at Ashfield her childhood home just a few days before.
0:15.3	But now she was on the brink of a new era in her life, and she wanted it to start straight away.
0:21.0	Writing about this time many years later, Christie remembered that she embarked on this trip
0:25.6	with three essentials to acquire. Firstly, a flat or house to live in that was convenient
0:30.6	for her husband Archie's job in the city of London. Secondly, a live-in nurse to care for
0:35.6	the baby. And thirdly, a full-time live-in maid to care for the flat or house.
0:41.7	She also recalled the Christie's livable but not wealthy financial circumstances,
0:46.6	and reflected on how they never took taxis anywhere
0:49.0	and carefully budgeted for the purchase of new clothes and shoes.
0:53.5	Yet paying for two extra human beings to live
0:56.3	with them and serve the family full time was considered a necessity, not a luxury. Christy found her own
1:03.1	1919 attitude extraordinary when she looked back on it decades later, but it was standard for the time.
1:09.7	Even after the upheaval caused by the First World War,
1:13.0	all but the very poorest married women would expect to have household help of some kind or other.
1:18.1	Christy, brought up in middle-class comforts surrounded by beloved family retainers, was no different.
1:24.4	But even on that post-birth trip to London, there were hints that the typical household
1:29.3	of her childhood was a thing of the past.
1:32.5	At an agency for nannies, the first several candidates Christy met with rejected her,
1:37.6	not the other way around.
1:39.7	They felt that the wages on offer were too low, or were not inclined to accept a childcare job where they would also be expected to take on other housework.
1:48.0	The woman who eventually became Rosalyn's nurse, Jessie Swannell, accepted the job with the words,
	...

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