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Downton Abbey Has It
Wrong Says Historian
The cosy image of life at Downton Abbey is completely wrong
and "infuriating to watch", according to an expert on the period.
Historian Jennifer Newby said the servants in the hit country house drama,
created by Oscar winner Julian Fellowes, look too clean and were too
friendly with their employers.
She said: "I find it infuriating to watch, it sets my teeth on edge.
"The relationship they have with their employers is totally wrong."
Viewers who watched the Christmas Day special saw members of the
aristocratic Crawley family support valet John Bates (Brendan Coyle) and his
wife, housemaid Anna (Joanne Froggatt), during his trial and eventual
conviction for his first wife's murder. The Crawleys also hosted a dance for
the servants.
The two-hour episode ended with Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) finally going
down on one knee and proposing to Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).
Jennifer Newby, the editor of Family History magazine and author of a new
book called Women's Lives, has read hundreds of letters and diaries kept by
people who worked in service and the families they worked for.
She said: "There was one butler who said that even if in a moment of
weakness an employer could ask for advice they wouldn't give it because it
could be held against them.
"The servants in the programme are far too clean. The reality would have
been a lot more grubby, I don't think people realise that the servants
stank.
"I read one story from a woman who worked in a vicarage and she was only
allowed to wash when the vicar was out.
"They would have been seen rather like the way we look at our washing
machine, just something to give us a clean shirt."
Newby said the reality for many women who went into service was working for
miserly employers from a very young age.
She said: "They were offered not just a regular wage but a warm home as well
but they often became institutionalised and could not cope without the
routine."
While writing her book, she uncovered letters from a teenage maid who told
her mother she started work at 5am and went to bed at midnight and was so
tired that "sometimes I am obliged to have a good cry".
December
28
2011 - waveguide.co.uk
Reader Comment
Downton Abbey is fiction not a documentary, if she cares
that much then why doesn't she make a documentary herself rather than
criticise a show which is entertaining, well acted and makes a nice change
from all those dreadful reality shows.
Andie, High Wycombe.
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