Domestic School (1948)

Somerset. Exterior shot of Chilton Cantelo House, the first Government-sponsored centre to train girls for domestic work. It looks like a stately home. Commentator refers to girls who have done their training here becoming graduates of the National Institute of Houseworkers. Inside the centre we see girls scrubbing stairs and polishing the floor by hand and with an electric polisher. Miss Asquith is instructing the girls on the correct way to polish. In another room, two women make a bed with a girl in it! (Perhaps they didn’t notice her.) Three girls are shown how to use a sleeve ironing board. In the kitchens we see the students, whose ages range from 15 to 50, being instructed by Miss Jolly. They make pies at a table. One girl puts hers into an old-fashioned coal range. Another takes food out of a modern range. An old man and woman sit at a dinner table with a young woman. One of the trainee houseworkers enters and puts a plate before the old woman. Commentator explains that in the