Downton Abbey

[LadyofMercians]

I'm very late to the party with this one, but I've just finished all 6 series and the 2 films. I've mostly enjoyed it, but it has left me with lots of questions. It's not a period in history that I know a great deal about and I'm wondering just how realistic the Crawley family's care for their servants was?

Paying for legal expertise for Bates and Anna, medical bills for Mrs Patmore & Mrs Hughes, mostly turning a blind eye to Barrow's 'transgressions'? Not to mention complete acceptance of Tom Branson into the heart of the family or Edith's 'ward'?

Obviously, as viewers, we need to like the main characters, but would a family of that social standing and in that time really be so kind?

Completely unrealistic. It’s a farrago of soft core class apologetics by that toad, Julian Fellowes.

ETA And a criminal waste of good actors on a dreadful script.

I love Downton, but the Granthams are ridiculously progressive in a way that would have seen them ostracised by their peers if they’d behaved like that at the time.

I doubt the King and Queen would be going for dinner at the home of such a scandalous family!

It's very soft hearted and no one is a truly villainous character. It's been said that Fellowes owes plot inspiration and actual plots with Upstairs, Downstairs. There's something in this but boy oh boy how much harder hitting was Upstairs, Downstairs. The poshos do not come off well and the below stairs are definitely not all likeable either.

There's Titanic ✅ a chauffeur plot line or 5 ✅ illegitimate child of posho ✅ the dawn of socialism ✅ etc. but differently handled. Possibly in a manner more palatable to modern times.

Pretty much as I thought, but I've mostly enjoyed it. I loved the locations, even though I live in the area it's supposed to be set, but not actually filmed here. Hearing about trips in York, Malton & Ripon etc but knowing they were filmed anywhere but those places was amusing! And the excellent rail service to London seriously rivals what we have now 😀

I absolutely love Downton but it’s nonsense. They probably would have been total shits.

It varied, you know, people were not all the same; just like today, really.

There is a NT house near Chester, Erdigg, where the Edwardian family were intensely interested ( benevolently) in their servants, there are more photographs of them than of the family. A village where I used to live had a row of Almshouses built by the family in the ‘big house’ for their retired servants and estate workers. When they moved out, they made it into a charitable trust.

OTOH, there was a family in Surrey who were notorious for impregnating female servants and throwing them out.

Anyone looking forward ti the next film & wondering how it'll all wind up?

Servants weren't meant to be seen for a start, let alone talked to.

Love old lady Grantham, love her sayings.

I have actually introduced some into conversations some times 😂.

I often wonder about how realistic it is. I wonder what the staff ate at every meal in real life, and how many courses would upstairs eat on an evening! And lunch, 3 courses?

What’s the story line do we know?

I've always thought that the Crawley's care and concern for their servants is over the top. I'm very interested in the era that Downtown is set so have read a lot about it and watched a lot of documentaries and films set in that period. From what I've witnessed,the upper classes didn't really care that much about their servants. Their main concern was to give them the barest minimum to stay healthy so therefore able to look after their every whim. I agree with the previous poster who says that Upstairs Downstairs was more hard hitting. I think it was much more realistic in the way they treated their servants.

I do know something about Mary from having seen a trailer.

Hope it's not a Mary-centric storyline!

I’m currently on S6. It’s a rewatch though. I’ve enjoyed it much more second time around. Maggie Smith’s performance is a joy.

@diddl oh me too!

I will look for the trailer 😊.

Would be nice to see Daisy married and happy with Andy - and Mrs Patmore married to Williams dad 🥰.

It always put me in mind of Acorn Antiques.

Yes there was a storyline involving Lady Rose and a singer and everyone’s reaction to it was definitely not what it would have been.

As well as this the family understanding that Barrow was gay and this just got hushed up and swept under a rug when it was, at the time, a criminal offence.

They would have cared for the welfare of their servants. But not cared about them as individuals. Anna would have stopped work as soon as she was married. Social boundaries were equally observed by the servants as well as the families.

I doubt I would have watched it and stuck with it but for the peerless Dame Maggie Smith’s masterclass in the delivery of lines.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen Erdding came to mind when I read this thread!

Right! I adore period dramas and I really struggled with it despite the luscious setting because the storylines were not just a little untypical but outrageously and constantly so! Also, the script was diabolical and just so cringeworthy!

Daisy and Andy are already married and living with Williams dad... I think it was in the first film?

The accents of the Crawleys and all the other poshos are wrong.
They're far too middle class.

If you can find the YouTube video about the Mitford sisters, you can hear how people of that class really spoke.

Daisy starts off in the first series as a complete fool, seriously uneducated and gullible.

She gradually has a personality change and massively improves in intelligence.

I find her the most irritating character out of the lot of them. The only thing I would sayin her defence though is that I imagine in 1912, when episode 1 begins, she is probably only meant to be 13 or 14. Obviously the actress was nowhere near that age, but that is the age kitchen maids would have started work - at 12 even - and if you think of her as being an innocent young teen at the beginning, her development throughout the series makes more sense.

I hope that Andy & Daisy have given up service & are helping on the farm.