give yourself a heart attack. Things cannot be the same when there’s a war on.’
CARSON
‘I do not agree. Keeping up standards is the only way to show the Germans they will not beat us in the end.’
Below stairs, the day begins early, and breakfast is eaten after completing their morning tasks but before the family come down from their bedrooms. Gordon Grimmett, third footman at Longleat House during the First World War, did not look forward to breaking his fast in the morning: ‘It was a picnic kind of meal with people coming and leaving as their duties required. There was little variety, it seemed it was always kedgeree on weekdays and bacon on Sundays. As it was war time we were each given a quarter of a pound of butter a week, which we kept in a small tin; once that was gone it was dry bread.’
Lord Grantham and his daughters, as well as any guests, arrive in the dining room for breakfast at around 9am – Lady Grantham is absent, as married women enjoy the privilege of breakfast in bed. The footmen serve tea, as well as coffee and hot toast, but otherwise everyone helps themselves. This is the most informal meal of the day, when the family themselves lift the lids of silver chafing dishes, kept warm by small oil burners beneath and laden with bacon, eggs, devilled kidneys and porridge. Cold slices of tongue, ham and grouse are placed on the sideboard. Cornflakes, called ‘Post Toasties’, which have come from America, are on the table, with milk from the house’s dairy.
Phyllis Logan is Mrs Hughes
‘I like the scenes with Carson. In those moments they have a chance to be themselves, because they’ve always got his character very much in charge. Carson takes it all very seriously, but when he has his little chats with Mrs Hughes that’s his one opportunity for a bit of a release. So I do enjoy those scenes.’
LIFE IN THE KITCHEN
The kitchen staff worked the longest hours of all the servants, from the early morning start baking bread and preparing a cooked breakfast, until the servants’ supper late at night, not to mention the washing up of pots, pans and crockery in between. In every large house, the kitchen was the workplace of the cook and her ‘family’, who discouraged the interference of other servants; neither the butler nor the housekeeper, nor indeed any of their staff, were welcome within it without a good reason.
Although hard on her staff in the heat and bustle of the day, Mrs Patmore has her moments as a caring matriarch of her kitchen family, dishing out advice to Daisy, as the youngest member of her staff. The division between the servants applies to meals, too, with Mrs Patmore and her kitchen staff always eating separately in their own dominion; there they can all finally put their feet up in an atmosphere that is less stuffy than that of the servants’ hall, where the butler is on alert for any cheekiness and the housekeeper keeps a beady eye on any flirtation, poised to stamp it out with a fierce glare.
Lesley Nicol is Mrs Patmore
‘The basis for everything is something the historical advisor said to me: “Consider this like a show. It’s got to be the best show.” Then I got it. When someone comes to stay, they’ve got to leave saying it was perfect. My character has enormous pride and commitment. It just can’t go wrong, she can’t allow things to go wrong. But what else has she got? That’s her life.’
Alongside the endless cooking, the cook has to supervise the preparation of everything that comes out of her kitchen. She has an army of kitchen maids to help her, as everything from consommé to horseradish sauce must be made from scratch, not to mention the constant baking – every loaf of bread, cake and biscuit is homemade, ready for elevenses as well as afternoon tea.
MRS PATMORE
‘No! Listen to me! And take those kidneys up to the servery before I knock you down and serve your brains as fritters.’
Dinner is the big event for everyone in the house. Dressed in white tie, the family would assemble in the drawing room, where they would talk but not drink. In London there is a growing fashion for cocktails before dinner, but it hasn’t reached Downton yet. At dinner, with three courses at the very least – five if there are important guests – Mrs Patmore does her best to show off her culinary finesse (for the family anyway; the servants make do with simpler fare such as lamb stew and semolina, prepared by the kitchen maids).
At the table, Lord Grantham sits in the middle on one side, his wife opposite, as the Royals do. His mother, Violet, sits at his right as the next grandest woman in the room. Carson pours the wine and Thomas and William, wearing gloves (only footmen wore gloves and only to wait at table – never for any other task), serve the food, à la Russe. They begin by serving whoever is sitting on Lord Grantham’s right and work their way clockwise around the table, men and women alternately. The modern restaurant fashion for ‘ladies first’ is continental. The serving dish is held on the diner’s left while they help themselves. Finished plates are collected from the right-hand side. Only when Lord Grantham has the decanter of port and glasses (he will pour it himself) in the dining room and the women have been served coffee in the drawing room, may the servants have their supper. It is their first chance to relax since they started their working day.
BEHIND THE GREEN BAIZE DOOR
From the early hours of the morning until late at night, the servants are permanently on duty to attend to all the demands of the house and family. Below stairs, just a few moments of calm may be snatched during the day and are a welcome relief indeed.
Once the family have finished breakfast and gone about their business for the day, everyone has a list of chores to get on with until lunch. There is a brief respite for the servants’ midday meal at around noon before the machine is set in motion again for the family to be served their lunch promptly at 1pm. At about 4pm the servants are given bread and cheese by the cook and this must keep them going until they have their supper, a substantial two courses, but only after the family have finished theirs and the dining room has been cleared away. The crockery is brought downstairs for Daisy to wash up, but the glasses are left in the servery – they will be carefully cleaned the next day.
THOMAS
‘This isn’t her territory. We can say what we like, down here.’
Supper for the servants is always looked forward to – their work is over and it is the longed-for moment when they can all breathe, kick back and relax. It is also a time when the staff can have time to themselves away from the family and can indulge in some gossip about the goings-on in the house and amongst their employers. As Alastair Bruce, historical advisor, told the actors: for the servants, observing the family upstairs was the equivalent of watching Coronation Street or EastEnders today. But although the atmosphere is informal at the end of their working hours, lapses of manners are not permitted. Carson ensures that the servants of the house continue to reflect the gentility of the people they serve. A strict order of precedence is set around the table, just as in the dining room upstairs. Mrs Hughes sits at the right hand of Carson, the footmen sit by the butler, the head housemaid and lady’s maid by the housekeeper, with the lower-ranking servants at the other end of the table. In a house such as Downton Abbey, there is no concept of ‘off-duty’.
Knowing your place
On set, there is a genuine sense of an above and below-stairs division. On the first day Alastair Bruce divided the cast into ‘above’ and ‘below’ and they were put in different rooms to hear his talk on what life would have been like for them. Once they were filming, many of the below-stairs cast worked nearly all the time at Ealing Studios, rarely venturing to the big house to film at Highclere Castle, and vice versa. Lesley Nicol, who plays Mrs Patmore, says: ‘When you do a job like this, you start to take on the genuine feelings of your character. So when I went to Highclere,
