***Weary Winnie***
Dear Diary
We were all talking about names today. Weary Winnie – that's what I call her now but not to her face because she is always saying she is – said it was all a mountain on a molehill or a molehill over a mountain or something like that. I nearly said Weary Winnie instead of Winnie when I was talking to her this morning, but I stopped myself just in time and said, "We really made lots of apple pies," because it was the first thing that came into my head, I don't know why.
Weary Winnie gave me a funny look and said, "What ARE you talking about, girl? I don't see any apple pies!"
"I mean we really made lots of apple pies yesterday," I said, which made it worse because Weary Winnie just stared at me. "We made TWO large apple pies yesterday, Daisy Daydream, which is not by any stretch of the imagination a LOT! No wonder I'm weary with all your nonsense."
Betty was with Mrs Patmore who was showing her something about the ovens and they couldn't hear over the water where I was doing the dishes so I said to Weary Winnie because she'd been talking about Betty being too uppity over her name when I nearly said Weary Winnie, "Mrs Hughes changed my name to Hinny, but I don't mind."
Weary Winnie is very strange at times. She asked me when I first started work here if I had a bow or if I was too young. I said I wasn't too young, I even had a bow in my hair when I was very little but I didn't think I could wear one in the kitchens so I had some ribbon she could have if she wanted. But she just started laughing so I don't know why she asked me for it in the first place. I think she must be bit mad.*
After I said about not minding being called Hinny, she said, "I'll tell you something for nothing, Daisy, you're a daft Hinny all right" and then she said she'd tell me a secret and she whispered to me that her real name isn't Winnie Clack, her real name is Vanessa Arabella Charlotte Clack but her first employers changed it when she went into service! Isn't awful how they could do that? Vanessa Arabella and Charlotte are beautiful names!**
Weary Winnie didn't seem to mind about it, though, because she was laughing when she said it (but she is a bit mad) but I was so angry about them changing her name that I told Mrs Patmore about it later even though it was meant to be a secret.
Mrs Patmore said they did change servants' names sometimes back in the olden days if they decided they were too posh, but if Vanessa Arabella Charlotte was her real name she was a monkey's uncle and I was very gullible, she'd stake her life on her name being plain old Winnie Clack, and nothing else. I knew what I'll be a monkey's uncle meant because my Dad used to say it but I had to ask what gullible meant, and Mrs Patmore said I believed everything everybody told me and I shouldn't always believe what they said. So I am not going to believe anyone any more and I am going to educate myself as much as I can.
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I just went downstairs to get my book that I forgot to read in bed so I decided to look up gullible in the big dictionary while I was there (it belongs to Mr Carson on top of the piano but he sometimes leaves it there and doesn't mind if you look in it) because Mrs Patmore said I shouldn't always believe what people said. It took me ages to find because I didn't know how to spell it and some of the servants wanted to play the piano so were in my way while I was trying to read. But gullible did mean what Mrs Patmore said it did, though they wrote it in a posher way.
Then I looked up Hinny to see if it was in and it WAS! It is just a nice word people in Scotland and North England say for a child or a woman! I didn't mind being Hinny too much but I am glad I am still Daisy. Mrs Hughes must call me Hinny because she thinks I am a woman so I feel very grown-up now.
ps Betty has been here two weeks and she still pulls a face when anyone calls her Betty.
A/N: *Winnie was asking if Daisy had a sweetheart (beau)
A/N (2): **Some more snobbish (and presumably insecure) employers actually DID change a servant's name if they thought it was too "grand" for someone working below stairs - although I am inclined to agree with Mrs Patmore, Winnie's real name was almost certainly plain old Winnie Clack! :D