this room, I can see clearly out into the sunlit street, and am able to make out

on the pavement opposite a signpost pointing out several nearby destinations.

One of these destinations is the village of Mursden. Perhaps 'Mursden' will ring

a bell for you, as it did for me upon my first spotting it on the road atlas

yesterday. In fact, I must say I was even tempted to make a slight detour from

my planned route just to see the village. Mursden, Somerset, was where the firm

of Giffen and Co. was once situated, and it was to Mursden one was required to

dispatch one's order for a supply of Giffen's. dark candles of polish, 'to be

flaked, mixed into wax and applied by hand'. For some time, Giffen's. was

undoubtedly the finest silver polish available, and it was only the appearance

of new chemical substances on the market shortly before the war that caused

demand for this impressive product to decline.

 

As I remember, Giffen's appeared at the beginning of the twenties, and I am sure

I am not alone in closely associating its emergence with that change of mood

within our profession - that change which came to push the polishing of silver

to the position of central importance it still by and large maintains today.

This shift was, I believe, like so many other major shifts around this period, a

generational matter; it was during these years that our generation of butlers

'came of age', and figures like Mr Marshall, in particular, played a crucial

part in making silver-polishing so central. This is not to suggest, of course,

that the polishing of silver - particularly those items that would appear at

table - was not always regarded a serious duty.

 

But it would not be unfair to suggest that many butlers of, say, my father's