MOLLIE Moran, the former kitchen maid who found literary fame last year through her best-selling memoir Aprons And Silver Spoons, died at home in Southbourne on Sunday, April 6, aged 97.

Born to a country smallholder in 1916, Mrs Moran worked in service at two stately homes in Norfolk – Wood Hall at Hilgay and Wallington Hall at Runcton Holme – during the 1930s.

In her youth she helped her mother with the housework and tended the pigs and chickens as her father had been gassed in the trenches and was often too ill to work.

She was just 14 when she entered this world of fast-fading grandeur, starting as a scullery maid. At Wood Hall she was paid £1 a month and got a day off and the use of a hip-bath once a week.

She worked hard from 6.30am to 8.30pm, scrubbing floors and shovelling coal, but described those days as “some of the happiest times” of her life.

A particular friend was kitchen-maid Florence Wadlow, from Wells-Next-The-Sea. They worked together for just two years but remained friends until the latter’s death in 2012.

When not working the pair could be found sneaking out to village dances to flirt with the locals – once almost breaking a conservatory while descending an escape ladder.

Mrs Moran caused a stir when Mr Orchard, the butler, saw her pictured in the News of the World wearing her swimsuit at the Serpentine lido in London.

It was Mrs Wadlow’s memoir of life below stairs which inspired her to write her own, which quickly topped bestseller lists and earned her appearances on Radio 4 and ITV’s This Morning.

Aged 22, she started work as a cook at Wallington Hall, where she met RAF corporal Timothy Moran at a dance, and wooed him with her sausage rolls.

Married, the couple and their two children, Tim and Ruth, travelled to Malaysia and Singapore where Mr Moran was posted, and where she had servants of her own.

However, as she told writer Jeremy Miles in an interview last year: “I really didn’t like people doing things for me. I’d much rather do it for myself.”

Mrs Moran went on to run the Hay Tor Hotel near Boscombe Pier while her late husband retired from the RAF and became a teacher.

In her final years she lived in a cliff-top house in Southbourne where until very recently she would host weekly Scrabble sessions with players from across the South West.

Her funeral takes place at Bournemouth Crematorium at 11.30am on Thursday, April 17.