well recognise them. Now we've been absolutely blown away by your outpourings of love for

our Victorian Way videos and especially for the character of Mrs Crocombe. But you have

also frequently expressed interest in the amazing actor that portrays Mrs Crocombe - Kathy

Hipperson. We haven't wanted to introduce you to Kathy in person before because we thought

it might sort of destroy the magic. But so many of you have asked for a video with Kathy

in person that well, we couldn't really deny you could we?

So without much further ado, here is the face of Mrs Crocombe. The brilliant Kathy Hipperson!

We asked you for the questions you most wanted to ask Kathy and over 400 of you responded

which is just brilliant. Now unfortunately we can't answer every single question, and

many of you did ask quite similar things. Just to say, none of the food on the shoots

goes to waste don't worry. Also some of your questions you'll find have been answered

in our behind the scenes videos so if you click on the link above me now you will find

that you can go and find out all sorts of tasty titbits about Mrs Crocombe - everything

about what she wears to a little bit more about her life to a really fascinating probable

photograph of Mrs Crocombe herself in later life. However, we want to give it our best

shot so Kathy - are you ready for your adoring public and their most burning questions.

I think I am.

Kathy, do you have a natural English accent? And, what were the challenges of bringing

to life a character such as Mrs Crocombe?

Urm...well. The challenges with bringing someone like Mrs Crocombe, a servant, to life are

such that not much was written about her so a lot of the research that we did to bring

her alive has been based on the house research and research done about servants generically

from that time in history. Nothing specific about her apart from what's in the census

which obviously is only ever ten years so it's quite challenging but we brought together

what a servant would do and to be able to get to her position, how she must have behaved

and what she must have been like.

Have you ever cooked Mrs Crocombe's recipes at home, what's your favourite recipe and

have you incorporated any of Mrs Crocombe's recipes into your everyday life?

Not into my everyday life, no. Urm, I definitely cook some of her recipes at home. Her recipes,

some of them, are very popular with my family. My favourite one is gingerbread cake.

Yeah.

I make that quite a lot.

Yes so do I weirdly enough. It's really nice isn't it?

And there's also the wider world of Mrs Crocombe as well. So what about, I mean because

there is her book but obviously both in the videos and also when you're on site her

at Audley End you cook other recipes that aren't in Mrs Crocombe's book. Her book

is just a snippet - what about other Victorian recipes?

Urm...we love here working in the kitchens we love using Eliza Acton. So anything pretty

much in her book we are ready to cook. Mostly cakes and sweet things because I've got

a sweet tooth.

Do you think you relate to Mrs Crocombe in any way?

Urm...I'm not a cook. So I'm not sure I do in that way. And I'm not a Victorian

servant and I'm not alive in the Victorian age. But I suppose that I like to think I'm

quite hard working and she must have been to have got to her position here at Audley

End House. She must have been fairly fair otherwise it is unlikely she would have got

this position. And she comes from a farming background - I come from a farming background.

Was Mrs Crocombe a real woman?

Urm…

We get asked this a lot.

As in was she a real a real person?

I assume so because quite clearly you are in fact real.

Yes. I'm real. And Mrs Crocombe was real. Yes. A simple answer to that.

Again, if you watch our behind the scenes videos you will find out all about the real

Mrs Crocombe.

What's your favourite part about being a historical interpreter?

I love finding out about people like Mrs Crocombe. So about people who aren't known and who

are what I would class as ordinary. So whilst kings, queens, dukes, famous people are interesting,

it's always nice to get a chance to play someone who isn't so well known. And also

a huge part of what I do is in schools and with children so I do a lot of education and

that's what's really important.

What do you do apart from historical interpretation do you have a regular job?

Urm...well historical interpretation is my regular job. I work every day in a costume

from some time in history. So as I mentioned I do quite a lot of education - I work a lot

in education in museums and in schools. But I also work - I've got my own theatre company

and we specialise in producing plays based around history - little known history, British

history. And I work for other historical interpretation companies, as well as Past Pleasures who I

work for here at Audley End House. I ride horses, I fly birds of prey in the medieval

era…

I think you're being a bit coy Kathy. You ride horses side saddle dressed as a Tudor

with a falcon on your arm. Come on…

I have been known to do that, yes.

Tell us a bit more about your theatre company.

Well our theatre company that I have with a friend of mine called Simon Kirk is Time

Will Tell Theatre. And as the name suggests we specialise in sort of history and time

- telling times gone by. We like to make a drama out of history and we do lots of unknown

stories. A lot of female stories in history.

And they are plays aren't they? They're really lovely showpiece plays most of them

which are quite immersive and involve an audience as opposed to what you tend to do here which is

much more ad-hoc and tends to be sort of talking to two or three people in small groups.

Oh yes and we play lots of different characters. Sometimes in our plays we are specific historic

characters, other times I've done a play that Simon (who writes them) created with

myself and another female actress and we didn't play a lady in them at all

Was that the one which I saw, the one where you all had mustaches?

Yes and strange beards, yes that's the one, yes.

Who was Mrs Crocombe married to and did she ever have children?

Well actually the title Mrs, in Mrs Crocombe, is a title of honour, respect really because she's a cook in such an important household.

But she didn't get married until she left. As a woman in such an important job she couldn't work and be married

So although we don't technically know the year that she left working at Audley End House

we do know that once she left she was married.

And that was in 1884 wasn't it?

That was right, yes, and she married Mr Stride and she then, being quite elderly at this point

She was what 40, what was she 43 in 1881 so she was what 45?

She isn't going to have children at 45 in the Victorian age

So she didn't have any children, no.

I just feel like between the two of us we shouldn't say elderly.

Alright, middle-aged.

But he had children and it's because of those children and his relatives that we have the cookbook.

Yes, and again, you can find out more about Mr Stride, about his relatives and about Mrs Crocombe's

later life by going to the link to The Victorian Way - Behind the Scenes videos.

Is there anything that you hope people will take away from these kinds of videos and the other projects that you do?

Um, I would like them to take everything away, everything that I say really.

I'd like them to take away certainly here in the kitchens, while we're working here in the kitchens

certain facts about what life was like in this kitchen, facts about Mrs Crocombe and then facts about

servants in general in the later Victorian age

and perhaps to get them thinking about what life, not just for them but the whole country, the whole world in that era.

So I'd like to give them lots of things to think about, to get them to think about what being a servant was like

and that actually some of the things they've been told aren't quite true

myth-busting

Yes, I mean we used to get people come in and go 'ooh, I wouldn't have liked to have been a servant,

it was so hard you started life at 12-years-old, scrubbing floors' and of course here, Mrs Crocombe shows you

were, if you made it to a house like this, really, really good and certainly not some form of underpaid slavvy

I think the statistic is something like 25% of servants - and that's it - worked in houses of more than two people

so to be working in a house like this with 24, 25 servants, you were good - and you could demand a decent wage as well.

Exactly, and if you think about it, she as a 13-year-old when she may have started, the options were going to work on the farm

and in some areas of the country working in a factory. I think this was definitely a better job.

Yeah, I mean full board and lodging, a pound of meat to eat every single day, you're doing quite well.

Do you love your job? Do people recognise you on the street?

Um, no, I don't get recognised on the street. I absolutely love my job most of the time.

What's not to love? Generally I get to dress up, I get to talk to some really lovely visitors

I get to share knowledge that I have found interesting with people who mostly find it interesting

I don't get recognised, I don't think, mostly because in history women wore a lot of hats

and covered their hair and their heads and it does dramatically change you.

My voice gets recognised occasionally, mostly at English Heritage sites

Is a historical interpreter an actor or do you have acting training or a degree or are you just really interested in history and also in acting?

Um, I think a historical interpreter can have all sorts of different backgrounds.

Well absolutely you have to have an interest in history and a lot of really talented historical interpreters I know

have degrees and masters in history. It certainly helps. If you have some natural acting ability I think that helps too.

It's just being personable actually with the public is the most important thing. I actually do have an acting background

that's what I trained in.

But you do also have a degree in pure maths, Kathy.

Which doesn't help me in my historical interpretation

No, but it's pretty impressive.

Unless we're going to do some interpreting maths

Enigma.

I was about to say, which would only involve modern history because obviously women didn't do maths in the olden days.

There are lots of historical interpreters out there who have got technically neither of that training

but they've got such a passion for history and a lot of them are teachers, so because they're naturally good

at speaking to people and explaining things that makes them equally as good.

Do you wish modern life was a bit more like Mrs Crocombe's?

What like living in the Victorian times?

Complete with syphilis and polio and rickets and malnutrition and really low birth rate

Massive sexism, no women's rights

Um, no.

Right ok, bring on the antibiotics and the birth control pill.

Right, next question.

What is one recipe that Mrs Crocombe refused to make or simply couldn't get right - and I think this is talking about

you as Mrs Crocombe.

That was going to be my first question.

Um... um... um... um...sheep's head.

I knew you were going to say that. I've apologised so many times.

I won't be making sheep's brain croquettes again

Oh you enjoyed that

Ever

You were there with your fingers in the brain going this is great, I really love the fact that I'm making sheep's

brain fritters and I want to do it every week.

I won't be doing that again. Annie once made me cook a sheep's brain.

Not again.

And the ears.

Is the costume comfortable? Well, historic clothing rather than costume because it is very, very accurate

and does it take a while to get into the kit for Mrs Crocombe?

It doesn't take long to get into it. She's a servant so her clothes are fairly practical.

It's comfortable. It's a corset that's been made specifically for myself that I wear underneath and it would be quite a different thing

I think, if you were asking me, and I was playing Lady Braybrooke, because naturally as a lady of status and

her corsets would be quite tightly laced.

And she'd be changing clothes five times a day.

And doing all her hair and all that stuff. So no, I think it's quite easy and I find it relatively comfortable, yes.

Kathy, were you a fan of the Victorian era before you accepted this role or did you really come to it through playing the character?

I didn't know anything much really about the Victorian age before I started working here

I knew quite a bit about the Tudors, that's a very popular time and the Civil War was quite an interest for me

Oh yes I've seen the pictures

So yes I came to the Victorian age really through working here, through you, working with you

and through Mrs Crocombe. Absolutely.

How does live interpretation change when you're interpreting to a live audience versus interpreting to a camera,

so a media outlet? And do you have any tips for people doing the latter?

Well naturally it changes because the live audience interact with you. And here in the kitchens we aren't performing as such,

we are generally talking, often one-to-one with the audience. So I will talk about anything

So an audience member might have a particular interest or the conversation we are having might take me off into talking about all sorts of things

music halls or museums or anything. So you never know where you're going to end up with a live audience.

I suppose people ask questions and it's very much led by them into where you want to go as well as you

gently steering so you can make sure that they come out with what you want them to know as well