The antics of the upper classes and their servants at the fictional Gosford Park have been intriguing cinema-goers for the last few weeks. As one of the region's favourite stately homes opens its doors to visitors fo the new season, Women's Editor Christen Pears talks to someone who lived the downstairs life for real.

ROWS and rows of copper pots, pans and jelly moulds gleam on the shelves. A long black range runs almost the entire length of one of the walls and, in the centre of the room, there is an enormous, very solid-looking table.

"It was one of my jobs to clean that table. I used to have to kneel on the top and scrub it until it was spotless," recalls Sarah Sanders proudly. Now 92, she arrived at Harewood House as a scullery maid in 1926 and, despite the intervening decades, she remembers her time here vividly.

"I worked here for two years and I loved every minute of it. It was kitchen work and that was very hard but I enjoyed myself, I really did."

Sarah, who lived in Stockton with her aunt, left school aged 14 and worked as a day servant in a private house in West Hartlepool. Two years later, she spotted an advertisement for a scullery maid at Harewood House near Leeds and decided to apply. Much to her surprise, she was offered the position and accepted immediately, leaving her home on Teesside for the first time.

The 1920s and 30s were an age of lavish entertaining among the aristocracy, the last flowering of the great English country house before exorbitant death duties and war finally took their toll. For 16-year-old Sarah, Harewood was a world completely different from anything she had ever experienced.

She started out at the bottom of the kitchen hierarchy as a scullery maid - although she progressed to a kitchen maid before she left the household - and most of her time was spent below stairs.

"The kitchen people were kitchen people. We weren't allowed to run around the house. We worked and lived down here," she says, pointing along a narrow stone corridor leading from the kitchen. "I used to share a room with another maid along there. It was quite basic but I liked it. We used to mix with the other staff but we kept to ourselves in the kitchen. No one else was allowed in. The footman used to have to stand at the door if he wanted anything."

The kitchens at Harewood were completed in the 1780s. Designed to the highest architectural standards of the time, the huge vaulted roof is shaped like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They were remodelled, first in the 1840s, and then 90 years later when the sixth earl and his wife, Princess Mary, the only daughter of George V, moved in.

In 1996, the kitchens were restored to their Victorian splendour and opened to the public on special occasions. The layers of whitewash, accumulated over the years, were stripped from the walls and ceilings, cupboards were removed to reveal the charcoal stove and the copperware was brought out of store, catalogued and returned to its original shelves. "The whole kitchen is almost exactly the same as when I worked here, except for the range. That was installed after my time by Princess Mary. The old oven had been in for years so I suppose she was taking advantage of the new technology."

Sarah's first duty each day was to light the fires for the old Victorian oven. The rest of her time was spent carrying out a range of tasks, many of them menial and repetitive but she claims she never had any complaints.

"People might not want to do that sort of thing now but the way people worked was different then. I remember sitting for hours on the scullery stairs peeling potatoes, especially if there was a big dinner on. I also had to scrub the small pans. We had two men who came in to clean the big ones - they were too heavy for us.

"I was just a maid so I didn't do any cooking myself but I learned a lot by just watching. It was a wonderful training."

There were strict rules governing the way the servants dressed - Sarah wore a grey and white uniform and matching cap - and behaved. Once, she was late back from a dance in the village and had to climb back in through the window. Unfortunately, she chose the wrong one and found herself in a bathroom - with the butler in the bath! "He wasn't very nice about it," she comments dryly.

The fifth earl and countess, the present Lord Harewood's grandparents, were in residence during Sarah's time at the house. Lord Harewood, who lived with his parents, the sixth earl and Princess Mary at nearby Goldsborough Hall, used to visit Harewood regularly.

"I remember watching him and his brother playing on the lawn," Sarah recalls. "They had nursery maids but we were sometimes allowed to join in. They were lovely little boys. In fact, we used to see a lot of the family and I liked them all very much."

During her time as a maid, Sarah also had the opportunity to sample life in London. "In the summer, we used to go to Bournemouth and then to London for the court season. I had never been to London before then and I used to really enjoy it. It was just me and the cook in the kitchen but on my days off, I used to go with the two housemaids and have a look around. Once we had to go to Buckingham Palace. We got to see the staff quarters and I remember being very impressed."

In 1929, the fifth earl died and the dowager countess and her household, including Sarah, moved to Goldsborough Hall. Sarah remained with the family until 1931, when she went to work at Kirkbank Hall in North Yorkshire as a cook.

She now lives in Halifax, but has re-visited Harewood several times in the last few years, most recently in 1996 when restoration work was completed on the kitchens.

"She's a wonderful lady," says David Lascelles, Viscount Harewood, the present earl's son. "We rediscovered her through an oral history programme where we were talking to people about their time at Harewood and she has some fascinating stories to tell."

Sarah admits to feeling rather strange the first time she returned to the house but, sitting next to the table, surrounded by kitchen paraphernalia, she seems quite at home.

"It's a long time since I worked here but I like coming back to see how things are - as long as I don't have to peel any potatoes."

*l Harewood House is open to the public until November 3 and, for the first time, the kitchens are open daily from 1pm to 4pm. Call 0113-218 1010 for more information or visit the website at www.harewood.org.