***Names***
Dear Diary
A new kitchen maid called Betty started this morning because Winnie keeps saying she's too old and too weary so can't do as much now and Mrs Hughes decided Mrs Patmore needed help with me working in the kitchens. She said her name was Elizabeth at first, but Mrs Hughes said it had already been clearly explained to her at her interview that she couldn't be called Elizabeth because of a Downton Abbey guest and she couldn't have her second choice of Betsy either because there's already a Betsy and it would be too confusing and she couldn't be called Liz or Lizzie because of Lizzie and she had agreed then to being called Betty, which is short for Elizabeth.
Betty said she didn't want to be Liz or Lizzie anyway and she had already told Mrs Hughes at the interview that she preferred Betsy to Betty, which was short for Elizabeth as well, and if she couldn't be a Betsy then she'd be Elizabeth whether anybody liked it or not.
But then Mr Carson chipped in (I have noticed he always takes Mrs Hughes's side) and said in that scary voice of his when he's being strict she most certainly would not be called Elizabeth, only footmen got their full titles. He said there is a friend of Her Ladyship's (I forget which one he said because there is a Lady Mary, a Lady Edith and a Lady Sybil who all live upstairs) called Lady Elizabeth who is staying in Downton Abbey for a while and it would not be respectable to The House for Betty to be called Elizabeth. I think Mr Carson was probably worried upstairs might get mixed up and think Betty is Lady Elizabeth and invite her to dinner.
I don't know how Betty dared argue with Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson like that and I was listening while I sieved the flour and she came up to me later when nobody else was looking and said I should have bought a ticket, the way I was staring at her. I tried to make her feel better by saying Mrs Hughes changed my name from Daisy to Hinny, but she just laughed and said I was an idiot. I don't think she likes me.
I thought she might have got the sack, but the problem is she can cook and very fast, not like me, because she is twenty and used to cook in a house where the mistress died and was sold, which was why she got the job and we were desperate because of Winnie being tired all the time and me cooking with Mrs Patmore. I told Lizzie about Betty being mean to me and I wrote a poem about her. This is it:-
I don't want to be Liz or Lizzie
I am far too busy
I am in a tizzy
and feel quite dizzy
because I don't want to be Betty or Bet
those names you can just forget
Elizabeth I couldn't get
which made me fret
as the jelly set
and I am Betty yet!
Lizzie thought it was very funny when I read it to her as she doesn't like Betty either. I told her I only put in the bit about the jelly to make it rhyme, we weren't making jelly, we were making fruit cake. Lizzie said I should write a poem about fruit cake some time because she likes my poems and I think that is a very good idea because there are always fruit cakes in our kitchens. She said I missed out Beth, though, and that can be short for Elizabeth as well so I added this bit, which should be at the beginning, but I don't like crossing out :-
Being called Beth
is a fate worse than death
I have called my poem I Am Elizabeth which Lizzie said is a great name for a poem, but I forgot to write it at the top and there's no room now. I hope Betty never gets to read it! This is a picture of her being mad if she did! That is a rolling pin she is waving. Lizzie said she didn't know it was a rolling pin until I told her. She thought it was a candle with a flame at both ends. I don't think it looks like that, do you?
ps We thought Bessie could be short for Elizabeth as well, but it was too hard to rhyme so I left it out. We thought there might be some more names too but that would make my poem too long.