Downton Abbey Discussion continued...

[ErikNorseman]

Here!

I'd forgotten the one in "call the midwife", it was the one with the lovely couple, beautiful wife and adoring husband wasn't it? Where she went into a coma? Tragic, as all true.

Yes. Poor old Sybil pretty much went out like a light compared to that one.

Haven't rea whole thread and fairly new to downtown, but can predict that Mary amd matthew will prove to be unable to conceive and now Sybil is dead and her DH will obviously dos runner they will end up bringing up Sybils baby as their own. The end.

Squoosh Downstairs, of course. I console myself with the fact that, a mere 120 years later, the trade union movement, feminism and technology have combined to give me a standard of living that even Lady Mary would have found comfortable.

Ladydayblues - dr clarkson knew it was eclampsia but was ignored by dr twatty and lord fatty

:( Such a sad episode :(

Watched it this morning and DH walked into the kitchen to find me in floods , and howling 'you stupid bloody man ' at the TV. Most bemused he was . Lady Grantham and Carson had me in floods , as did Cora sitting with Sybil . So so sad .

I agree that Tom will do a runner and Mary and Matthew will bring up the new baby . And Cora will kick Lord Grantham into touch whilst being civil in public .

A girl can't inherit however.

(There were a lot of girls that age who never married. My grandfather had 3 brothers who emigrated and never married and one who died young. Only 2 of the 7 brothers married and had children. They had 3 sisters two and none of the three married nor had children - this would all have been aruond WWI 1916+ when they might have all married. I think ti's a bit of a myth that single men and women are rare.)

There seems to have been huge risk in going to hospital as hygiene was not great and the last risk staying at home

ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/1/241s.full

Xenia, there were (until very recently now as these old ladies are dying out now) lots of single women especially as the young men of marriageable age had been almost wiped out between WWI and the flu epidemic of 1918.

Yes absolutely. A whole generation of young men was wiped out. I was surprised though that 4 of my grandfather's brothers were also single and he did not marry until nearly 40 and it was all because of money - you needed enough to get married.

I hid this thread yesterday as I wasn't able to watch it till today, didn't have the telly on this morning, but foolishly had a peek at MN this morning to find another thread with a spoiler in the title, grrr. So, much of the impact was lost for me, but it was still very good.

I think Branston will go back to Ireland, baby Sybil will be looked after by Cora and Edith. Cora will find it very hard to forgive Lord G. I can't remember whether Sybil and Branson married in the Catholic Church or the CofE one, not sure myself about all the ins and outs of bringing DCs up in or out of the Catholic church (my DH is Catholic but the DCs and I are CofE, no one has had a problem with that but we never attend Catholic church).

Thomas is going to get stitched up by O'Brien but will live to tell the tale. Bates - I was really hoping it was going to be him killed off. That entire storyline was and is totally unbelievable and I am always tempted to fast forward over his scenes.

But if Tom goes back to Ireland he´ll be arrested?

I know that a few people guessed on here that Sybil would die, but as I never saw anything in the press to say that the actress was leaving etc then I thought nothing of it. Didn't see it last night, and didn't look on here so had no idea she had died when I sat down to watch it this morning. Got the shock of my life when she actually died! Felt sure nice doctor would do something to help her but alas no it was not to be.

Cried buckets this morning I'm not ashamed to admit. I was watching it whilst cuddling my gorgeous baby boy who is 13 weeks old so I think that made it all the more upsetting. Kept looking at his lovely sleeping face whilst poor Sybil was dying! It was so so sad!

That is shocking schmaltzingMatilda

In Ireland in poor families around about this time perhaps the clever brother got an education, the least ugly one got married and the stupid one went into the priesthood. The daughter of course just stayed home and pandered to everybody else's needs.

the old days were not all they were craked up to be

Schmaltzing
I don't mean to be rude...but do you think that there is any chance they weren't actually married? Stranger things have happened...everyone may have been sure they were but...?

For example none of the family attended by great aunt's wedding...which when her daughter found the certifcate after she died was not on the date she said it was...

My grandmother born in 1905 was the youngest of 23, yes 23 living children. Only 6 of the 15 girls married and 2 of the boys. One girl had a child out of wedlock and sued the father for "breech of promise"..lost of course! I seemed to remember zillions of elderly unmarried aunts. One died during the spanish flue epidemic, one son during the war, one son wounded and one D during childbirth - only just found that out. Basically my ggparents considered it better to be unmarried that marry unsuitably.

Or became a nun, Jenna, as long as the parents managed to raise the dowry .

The other 14 (in the family of 18) emigrated and populated the world.

yeah, my mum is not that old (70) and she still winces when she thinks about the nuns fawning all over the doctor's daughters and treating her and her sister like they were at the bottom of the food chain.

23 children! omg, she beat the Duggans!

My Granny was one of a family of (I think) about 11 who grew to adulthood. four brothers went off the WW1 (three fought at Gallipoli), four sisters never got married.

Out of the 11, one brother and two sisters got married, only my Granny had children.

So I suppose you needed big families back then to ensure any grandchildren.

The unmarried sisters (four of them) continued on in the family home until it eventually fell down, pretty much and was sold to finance residential care for the last of them.

This was Ireland in the early 20th century.

Of course my family had no gumption or get up and go, so sadly none of them left the country to make us a fortune.

Er, MNHQ, what's up with the tagline to this thread in Discussions of the Day?

"bit of an upturn"?!

A character died a seriously grim and upsetting death in childbirth, it's really bad taste to describe it as a "upturn" for the series even if it was the best episode this year. Are you that desperate to make up/down puns?

I'd like to report it since it must be an oversight. Does anyone know how to do that?