It's enough to set your teeth on edge!

[jbml]

When  I was growing up, my parents took me (twice a year) to a private dentist at 13 Upper Wimpole Street. It was a very civilised affair, with an ancient receptionist (I guess she was probably only in her 50s as I am now ... but when you're only 8 or 9, that looks positively ANCIENT, doesn't it?)

Well ... i think I may just have found her prototype!

I just chanced upon the 1851 census entry for 13 Upper Wimpole Street, when it was a private residence, and guess what? They had a servant there called Mary Austin, whose age was given as (I kid you not) ... 91!!!

[emeltom]

No old age pension in those days so if you wanted to eat you just had to keep on working. I lost a great great grandfather, a ship's rigger, when he fell from the mainmast of a sailing ship. He was 68 and still climbing the rigging!

[still_looking]

From 1909 the 84 year old supervisor of the Chernigov floodgate, hopefully not easily lulled to sleep by the sound of rushing water
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018678762/

S_L

[jbml]

No old age pension in those days so if you wanted to eat you just had to keep on working. I lost a great great grandfather, a ship's rigger, when he fell from the mainmast of a sailing ship. He was 68 and still climbing the rigging!

Absolutely ... although I suspect that she may well have been kept on "light duties" as an old faithful household retainer that they didn't want to see headed to the workhouse. Sort of by way of an occupational pension scheme ... board and lodging in return for whatever she might have been still capable of (but the stairs in that place must have absolutely killed her ... I mean, the lift was OLD even in the 1970s, but it wasn't THAT old!!!)