<p>I just finished watching Philomena. There may be a story in that!</p>
<p>I find the interracial story line silly. I know they’re looking for dramatic plot lines.</p>
<p>I’m just being silly here, by combining the themes from two threads:</p>
<p>Did it ever snow at Downton? If so, who did the shoveling – the footmen?</p>
<p>(I was a long time in the driveway with my trusty shovel, with nothing else to think about.)</p>
<p>It was snowing when Matthew proposed to Mary.</p>
<p>The shoveling probably gets done by the same people who mow the lawn so perfectly, and maintain the gardens, and prune the trees. Not to mention patching the roof when it starts to leak. We don’t see much of them, because the cast is already large enough. If they gave identities to the groundskeepers, it might cut into their wardrobe budget, and THAT would be a disaster!</p>
<p>Don’t you wonder who replaced Branson as chauffeur? </p>
<p>^^Also, the outdoor employees such as gardeners, gamekeepers, carpenters, etc. aren’t really “servants” in the same sense as the others because they usually would not have lived in the big house or interacted very much with the Family. Most of them probably live in cottages on the estate or in the nearby town. Thus they mostly stand outside of the Downton Abbey plot lines. </p>
<p>There are maids we never see, however, who handle such exotica as laundry and cleaning the house. </p>
<p>And I asked this a while back: Does Edith have a lady’s maid?? If not, why not?</p>
<p>She doesn’t have a maid because they’d have to pay a cast member.</p>
<p>You sometimes see extra staff lined up outside for comings and goings, which is idiotic because that kind of send-off and welcome was a waste of time, not something a house would choose to do unless the visitor was a real dignitary. </p>
<p>And by the 20’s, though they’ve picked up on the need to make money as a story line, they’re ignoring the decrease in staff in that era. This came from 2 basic realities: WWI killed and wounded a huge number of young men and help cost more. </p>
<p>Domestic employment, meaning serving, was the largest employer in Britain along with agriculture. I found my notes from reading this book, heaven knows when, called Up and Down Stairs by Jeremy Musson. Here’s the relevant bits:</p>
<ol>
<li>Servants were not only in big houses, which were perhaps 1/5th of the total.</li>
<li>1851 - 905k women, 134k men</li>
<li>1901 - about 2 million total out of total population of 40 million, largest employment for women and 2nd largest for all after agriculture.</li>
<li>1911 - census figures - 1.3 million, more now than agriculture (1.2) or mining (971k).</li>
</ol>
<p>Are they really ignoring it? They are complaining non-stop about being shorthanded.</p>
<p>After Tom’s meet-up with the young woman at the political meeting and my own desire to see him in his own home, I think I’ve come up with the perfect spin-off series. The back story is that Tom married that woman, they moved into a lovely cottage, he continued as estate manager, Sybbie has grown up happily with her dad and stepmom and a handful of younger siblings. She has enjoyed weekly dinners at the big house (very Gilmore Girls), for which she has a wardrobe of fancy dresses purchased by Cora (Tom and the rest of the family are always invited and always decline). Sybbie’s favorite inhabitant of the Abbey is Isis II, though she finds it easy to confide in Anna. Our spin-off begins when the grandparents want to send teenage Sybbie off to an expensive Swiss finishing school and arrange for her to come out in society so she can meet an appropriate beau. Tom and stepmom think she’s a great candidate for (insert name of nearby college that accepts female students) and are fond of the young political firebrand farmhand who has been courting her. To make things more complicated, World War II is approaching. Title: The Two Worlds of Sybil Branson.</p>
<p>Edith doesn’t get a lady’s maid because she is the homely, unloved middle sister, doomed to perpetual unhappiness and to constantly get the short end of the stick. </p>
<p>Doesn’t even the " homely, unloved middle sister, doomed to perpetual unhappiness and to constantly get the short end of the stick" deserve someone to put away her clothes and shine her shoes??</p>
<p>NO. </p>
<p>Team Blake for me, too.</p>
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<p>This made me laugh out loud, Cardinal.</p>
<p>Will clearly need a bottle of Middle Sister wine before Sunday.</p>
<p>MomJ–LOVE your story line!!!</p>
<p>@MommaJ I also like the storyline. Reminds me a bit of Ken Follett’s century trilogy! I enjoyed Fall of Giants and Winter of the World, and am looking forward to the third book’s release in September.</p>
<p>^ Oh, me, too college_query.</p>
<p>I like that story line as well - perhaps you should write and suggest it.</p>
<p>Anyone else notice that one of the characters in the movie The Monuments Men is Hugh Bonneville that plays Robert Crawley. That’s 3 actors from the show that are in movies currently being advertised.</p>
<p>I was so struck by the fact that Cora did not join her husband when her brother was in trouble. It would give her a chance to see family. Why didn’t she go?</p>