October 1869: setting off for England and close encounters with toast and sandwiches

I’ve written on LinkedIn about my new translation project, working on the memoir of Anna Mues, a German governess whose career would eventually take her all around the world.

In this first extract, we meet Anna in October 1869. She is 31, and has over a decade of experience working as a governess within Germany. Now, she is about to take up her first overseas position in England. This involves a violently stormy crossing of the English Channel, but on reaching England Anna’s luck improves and she has her first encounter with a ‘sandwich’ at Cannon Street station, before travelling to her new home in Kent with the Baiss family, meeting some confusion involving how to decline a glass of sherry and coming across ‘toast’ at breakfast.