The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era by Fellowes Jessica & Sturgis Matthew

Author:Fellowes, Jessica & Sturgis, Matthew [Fellowes, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250027634
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2012-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Carson You’re sure you can manage this?

Alfred Quite sure, Mr Carson.

Carson There’s nothing hot. It’s not a shooting

lunch. Give them some champagne first, and

that’ll allow you time to set it out properly.

Carson Miss O’Brien, we are about to

host a Society wedding. I’ve no time for

training young hobbledehoys.

Still, being a footman was considered less taxing and far smarter than most other jobs available to a young man of his position. Nor is it remarkable for Alfred to have got his job through his aunt – servants often found work through family connections. Arthur Inch, a butler who was one of the advisors on Gosford Park, was the son of a butler himself, growing up on a landed estate in Yorkshire. He got his first job as a houseboy at Aldborough Hall, Boroughbridge. Before he started, his father showed him how to iron a suit correctly, to lay out a gentleman’s clothes, to clean hunting clothes and to dismantle, clean and reassemble a 12-bore shotgun, in case he was required as a loader. ‘I was also passed on to footmen who taught me many of their duties, such as how to mix plate-powder with ammonia and clean the tarnish off silver.’ One can imagine that his first boss was delighted with his new, learned recruit.

A footman’s duties brought them into quite a bit of contact with the family and its guests upstairs. They would open doors, take notes for messages, and also act as valets for any visitors who came to stay without their own servants. When travelling in their employer’s car they would sit in front with the chauffeur, ready to open the door and help passengers in and out. More unobtrusively, the footmen would lay the table for breakfast, lunch and supper, take the dishes up from the kitchens and wait at table (wearing white gloves, so as not to leave fingerprints on the plates or glasses); they would also clear tables. In between meals, they attended to fires and helped to serve tea in the library or drawing room.

Their visibility meant their deportment had to be exceptional. ‘Alastair [Bruce, the on-set historical advisor] is always very quick to draw attention to posture,’ says Milne. ‘It should be straight as a board. But there are lots of other things, little details. The position of your hands is very important. They should never be held in front of you. Ideally, in a formal situation, your thumbs should be running down the seams of your trousers.’ Learning these things could be taxing, but, as Milne explains, for him it was a good thing: ‘Alfred wouldn’t have known about these things either. He would be learning them too. So you can feed these details into the performance.’

Alfred would rather

have entered service as

a cook, so he is often found

lingering in the kitchen

longer than most footmen.

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