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?

i finished it last night and enjoyed it. I couldn’t take to Daisy though.

i watched the first film after with the King. It didn’t do anything for me and I would’ve been annoyed if I’d paid to see it. Is it worth watching the second one?

DA is my comfort telly but it's complete bloody nonsense. Absolute puff.

Saw it yesterday.

All seemed a bit pointless really.

Most of them seemed to have gone rogue!

At the end was Baxter just filling in for Anna as Mary's maid until Anna went back?

Barrow going upstairs seemed so contrived also.

I suppose it was all to show how things were changing-as with Carson & Daisy being on a committee with Isobel.

The TV series is better than the movies generally

Marriages between British men of impeccable pedigree with no money and rich American women were very common in that period, though.

was Baxter just filling in for Anna

No, they’ve switched The Bates’s are going to live at the Dower House with Cora and Robert. That’s what I understood anyway

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.

The Yorkes of Erddig were benevolently interested in their servants like they might be interested in their dogs or horses but not as friends like the Crawley staff. They worked them incredibly hard and were prepared to throw them right under the horse-drawn omnibus when it suited them, as shown by their treatment of Ellen Penketh the 'thief-cook'

www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/15948943.i-want-people-to-know-she-had-a-place-there/

(Tessa Boase's book about housekeepers is great for a look at below stairs life in big houses!)

Ah wasn't sure.

I suppose that would mean that they were both still working together.

So who is minding the Bates children all day? They hardly acknowledged the existence of the older child in the last film. They both seemed to be working all the time day and night. I don't know but I would have thought the more common thing would be to retire during pregnancy and a new single maid be brought in.

@EachandEveryone I saw it a few days ago and enjoyed it. I preferred it to the ridiculous one about making the film in the house.

In the nursery upstairs. Totally true to life. 😆

@Dontlletmedownbrucein real life she would have stopped working on marriage!

I am bingeing it at the mo. I am halfway through series 6 although i am rewatching. I haven't seen the films yet so that's a new treat for me.

I searched for a thread like this because Daisy is irritating me even more second time. I get that she has no life experience but the way she goes on and on at Cora about Mr Mason and the farm is so unrealistic - she definitely would have been fired way before now.

Also, and I know it is probably historically accurate but the Marigold storyline is making me so angry. Edith gets pregnant, has baby adopted to a family in Switzerland, marches over there and takes the baby back. Brings baby home and has her adopted to the Drewes. Once Mrs D bonds with baby Edith decides to take her back again. Then throws the Drewes out when Mrs D takes Marigold back home (OK I get that Mrs D was in the wrong but still). When Edith acts all like Mrs D is a guilty party throughout - the poor child must be traumatised by all the upheaval and poor Mrs D......

I'm enjoying it again though - it's a comforting watch.

@VivaDixieit annoys me when Mrs Pelham praises Edith for being so honest. When she lied to everyone including Bertie! She treated the Drews appallingly. If she’d told them the truth it would have been ok, because Mrs Drewe would have understood.