Oh dear. Two summers ago we caught Maude going about her work in the house while wearing dry wellies. All of the household servants at the Hall know that during the summer months, their uniform wellies should be kept well topped up with water at all times, and so an example must be made of anyone who breaches the rules.

We let the other servants suggest suitable penalties, and the punishment they came up with was simple--on the first sunny day of the Spring, when the air was warm but the waters of the estate river were still chilly with snow-melt from the high moors, we sat Maude down on a chair beside the old stone Bathing Pool Bridge, and had Nurse Wendy pour four full buckets of freezing river water over her from above. The height of the bridge at that point is over twelve feet, so the chilly water lands on Maude with some force! Her hair ends up completely plastered to her head and her uniform dress is totally drenched. Having poured the four buckets, Wendy had some extra water left in a basin, so she throws that over too, just for thoroughness.

Any suggestion that Maude may have deliberately voted for this penlaty herself, or indeed deliberately made a point of wearing completely dry wellies while attending to Her Ladyship purely in order to receive a freezing drenching, are of course just rumours.

The reason there is some dampness on Maude's uniform before the pouring starts is that she helped to fill the buckets for her own drenching, and in the process almost fell in the river before we could start the process! We may possibly have to give her another bucketing for that in the future.

Technical: The video has full original sound. We had a full audience of local people lined up on the bridge when we filmed this (they saw us gathering the buckets and stopped to watch), and you can hear some of their comments, and a round of applause at the end.