Ship of Fools: Downton Abbey Howlers

Thread: Downton Abbey Howlers Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

Yes, I know we've had Downton Abbey threads previously, but here in Australia we are just seeing the second series, and some of the stuff is pissing me off.

I can just about cope with anachronistic expressions such as "the Devil's in the detail", which I'm pretty sure has only been around for a few deades, but the military/historical detail is more serious.

First, the Irish chauffeur got called up (though rejected for health reasons) despite the fact that when conscription was introduced to Britain in 1916 it did not apply to Ireland.

Secondly, as officer and man, Matthew and William go swanning off around the countryside for several days on a patrol, in which they encounter a German patrol, despite the fact that this was impossible after the completion of the trench system in 1914; the only patrols were carried out at night, into no-man's-land, against the enemy trenches.

And yes, I know it's my own fault for watching soapies, but I've never watched one before - not even a single episode of Neighbours - so I feel I've built up credit which justifies indulgence in just a little bit of harmless escapist crap.

Hosts - you might want to move this to Heaven.

[ 25. June 2012, 07:18: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]

Posted by Stranger in a strange land (# 11922) on :

Did not connscription apply to British Subjects ordinarily resident in Great Britain? .If so an Irishman living in England would then be covered by the act. (Never seen the programme, so not sure whether this applies.)

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I can just about cope with anachronistic expressions such as "the Devil's in the detail", which I'm pretty sure has only been around for a few deades,

Why are you pretty sure of this, exactly?

I ask because I'm aware of numerous instances of people being accused of updating Shakespeare to sound modern when the phrase in question is actually in the original. There are plenty of phrases that 'sound' modern but aren't.

And also, as soon as you raised the Irish business, I immediately picked up the same issue: that he's an Irishman in England, not an Irishman in Ireland.

[ 25. June 2012, 08:23: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

The best biography of C.S. Lewis, Alan Jacobs's The Narnian, explicitly states that Irish nationals living in England, such as Lewis, were exempt, but could choose to volunteer - as Lewis, of course, did.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The best biography of C.S. Lewis, Alan Jacobs's The Narnian, explicitly states that Irish nationals living in England, such as Lewis, were exempt, but could choose to volunteer - as Lewis, of course, did.

I'd query whether at that time the law recognised any concept of an Irish 'nationality'. It would be more likely to have depended on where a person normally lived. C S Lewis was studying in Surrey but domiciled in Belfast. A Scottish person resident in England doesn't get a vote in a Scottish election or referendum. An English person resident in Scotland, does.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I can just about cope with anachronistic expressions such as "the Devil's in the detail", which I'm pretty sure has only been around for a few deades,
Why are you pretty sure of this, exactly?

Purely subjective, but when I just looked it up on Wikipedia, it suggested that the expression first appeared in print around 1975.

Posted by Grammatica (# 13248) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I can just about cope with anachronistic expressions such as "the Devil's in the detail", which I'm pretty sure has only been around for a few deades,
Why are you pretty sure of this, exactly?

Purely subjective, but when I just looked it up on Wikipedia, it suggested that the expression first appeared in print around 1975.

It has been credited to Aby Warburg; if true, that would be another reason to suppose it was not current in the England of the time.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

Kaplan Corday wrote:

quote:
Secondly, as officer and man, Matthew and William go swanning off around the countryside for several days on a patrol, in which they encounter a German patrol, despite the fact that this was impossible after the completion of the trench system in 1914; the only patrols were carried out at night, into no-man's-land, against the enemy trenches.

Not impossible. My grandfather received a commendation for a multi-day patrol in February, 1915, the beginning of a chain of circumstances which took him out of the front line to survive the war.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

Solution to everyone's problems- invest in an Upstairs, Downstairs Complete Series DVD box set!

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The best biography of C.S. Lewis, Alan Jacobs's The Narnian, explicitly states that Irish nationals living in England, such as Lewis, were exempt, but could choose to volunteer - as Lewis, of course, did.
I'd query whether at that time the law recognised any concept of an Irish 'nationality'. It would be more likely to have depended on where a person normally lived. C S Lewis was studying in Surrey but domiciled in Belfast. A Scottish person resident in England doesn't get a vote in a Scottish election or referendum. An English person resident in Scotland, does.

Ireland, all of it was a part of the UK , Southern Ireland as an seperate entity doesn't come into existance until 1921. Thus Irishmen were subject to conscription in WW I. [Votive]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PaulBC:
Ireland, all of it was a part of the UK , Southern Ireland as an seperate entity doesn't come into existance until 1921. Thus Irishmen were subject to conscription in WW I.

First sentence historically correct, second one historically wrong.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PaulBC:
Ireland, all of it was a part of the UK , Southern Ireland as an seperate entity doesn't come into existance until 1921. Thus Irishmen were subject to conscription in WW I.

First sentence historically correct, second one historically wrong.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Kaplan Corday wrote:

quote:
Secondly, as officer and man, Matthew and William go swanning off around the countryside for several days on a patrol, in which they encounter a German patrol, despite the fact that this was impossible after the completion of the trench system in 1914; the only patrols were carried out at night, into no-man's-land, against the enemy trenches.
Not impossible. My grandfather received a commendation for a multi-day patrol in February, 1915, the beginning of a chain of circumstances which took him out of the front line to survive the war.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be fascinated to read a few more details.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

The anachronisms bother me a little bit. The way Lord and Lady G treat Edith bothers me a lot. Still, I can't wait for Part 3.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

/slight tangent/

I remember going to see the film "Enigma" some years ago - it starred Kate Winslet and was set in WW2.

During the film she and her beloved drove up to Scotland on "unofficial leave". Virtually the whole cinema cried out, "How did they get the petrol coupons?"

Same film also had a post-1948 British Railways train (complete with BR number). At the risk of sounding nerdy, that's a common fault. Much worse (albeit in model form) on an otherwise brilliant BBC series about the Irish Troubles in the early 1920s.

/tangent ends/

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

The Irish Home Rule Bill, 1914 had been passed, but not implemented. It promised a Senate and House of Commons in Dublin, both of which had been dissolved in 1801, and it would have turned the Lord Lieutenant into an office like the Governors General in Canada and Australia; that is it would be ceremonial.

There would have been continued but much reduced Irish representation in Westminster.

It was delayed by the war and made irrelevant by the Easter Rising and the Irish Civil War. During that time The Connaught Rangers, a regular Irish regiment, mutinied while in India. The British saw it as writing on the wall, as they would with the later mutinies in the Indian Army and Navy in 1947.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

SPK and Kaplan are right. The UK government certainly believed itself legally entitled to conscript in Ireland, but chose not to.

Irish residents could volunteer, and many did, from all parts of Ireland. A larger proportion of loyslists than republicans, not surprisingly. It led to some extreme circumstances of divided loyalty - the strangest probably was Erskine Childers (an Englishman, not an Irishman) who simultaneously fought for the British against the Germans, while plotting with Germans to smuggle guns into Ireland to fight the British - and after the war was one of the chief diplomatic negotiators for the new Republic talking to Britain, even though he was a senior British civil servant, and later opposed the "Free State" treaty he had himself negotiated, fought for the IRA, and was shot by the Irish government.

In the Second World War, well after independence, many Irish citizens joined the British Army. (Some still do.) A few thousand Irish soldiers deserted their army to join the British. They are politically controversial in Ireland to this day.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
/slight tangent/

I remember going to see the film "Enigma" some years ago - it starred Kate Winslet and was set in WW2.

During the film she and her beloved drove up to Scotland on "unofficial leave". Virtually the whole cinema cried out, "How did they get the petrol coupons?"

Same film also had a post-1948 British Railways train (complete with BR number). At the risk of sounding nerdy, that's a common fault. Much worse (albeit in model form) on an otherwise brilliant BBC series about the Irish Troubles in the early 1920s.

/tangent ends/

I had a slightly similar experience in Out of Africa, except that it was only me that reacted. Robert Redford arrives in his aeroplane and snogs Meryl Streep passionately on the verandah. The rest of the cinema is thinking 'oh, how romantic' and I'm thinking 'not in front of the servants'. Even in the 'are you married or do you live in Kenya?' (pronounced Keenya) era they wouldn't have done that.

I'd love to see a film that seriously replicated the railways of 1920/1 Ireland. It would be just about impossible to get anywhere near the real thing. But I think Brief Encounter is spoilt by all the love interest.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Well, the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland has certainly tried its best to fulfil your dream ...

[ 25. June 2012, 22:37: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

On the tangent of other historical howlers, James Caan (an American) stars in the 1968 film Submarine X-1 which portrays the X-Craft raids on the Tirpitz in 1942. In order to fit his accent, they made him a Lt. Commander in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, the "Wavy Navy". Thus he has the Canada title on shoulder, even though the RCN did not assign individual personnel to the RN like that.

The RCN crewed Canadian ships only, a policy dating back to 1910, the exceptions being the escort carriers Nabob and Puncher, which had British air groups and Canadian crews. These ships suffered from morale problems because Canadian sailors were paid much more than British ones, leading to lots of jealousy and fights below deck on pay days.

The movie was a case of trying to fit an American star into a British film topic by any means necessary.

Don't get me started on D-Day films.

Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
...

Don't get me started on D-Day films.

I'd be interested in your critique of "The Devil's Brigade" SPK.

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
/slight tangent/

I remember going to see the film "Enigma" some years ago - it starred Kate Winslet and was set in WW2.

During the film she and her beloved drove up to Scotland on "unofficial leave". Virtually the whole cinema cried out, "How did they get the petrol coupons?"

Same film also had a post-1948 British Railways train (complete with BR number). At the risk of sounding nerdy, that's a common fault. Much worse (albeit in model form) on an otherwise brilliant BBC series about the Irish Troubles in the early 1920s.

/tangent ends/

/further tangent/See, for me, when Ms. Winslet is on the screen, historical accuracy is generally taking a back seat to other thoughts. [Hot and Hormonal]

/tangent ends/

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Kaplan Corday wrote:

quote:
Secondly, as officer and man, Matthew and William go swanning off around the countryside for several days on a patrol, in which they encounter a German patrol, despite the fact that this was impossible after the completion of the trench system in 1914; the only patrols were carried out at night, into no-man's-land, against the enemy trenches.
Not impossible. My grandfather received a commendation for a multi-day patrol in February, 1915, the beginning of a chain of circumstances which took him out of the front line to survive the war.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be fascinated to read a few more details.

Not many details available, and I can delve into his journal to get the exact places etc-- the description is but a few lines. A longtime militiaman, recruited by Sir Henry Pellatt from his father's pharmacy (H Austin, 1486 Queen St West), he was one of the few in his regiment (Queen's Own Rifles of Canada) who marched out of Toronto in 1914 and were alive to march back in 1919. In a numbered battalion, he was in a detachment of a dozen sent out in Flanders in bad winter weather-- Canadians were deemed to be capable of walking in snow-- and came back four days later with 3 prisoners and lots of sketchmaps. Made corporal shortly afterward and, as a pharmacist, he was one of those who in the second battle of Ypres instructed troops to urinate into their handkerchiefs as a way of protecting themselves form chlorine gas. The Canadian line held as the Algerians broke and, recommended for a decoration (never awarded), they made him a sergeant and gas instructor.

As such, he made his way up the ladder to a commission and, after training US troops in gas warfare, found himself a captain in 1919. In 1922, he was permitted to accept a French decoration (médaille militaire) and, on his way to a Remembrance Day parade in 1936, was knocked over by a drunk driver and died later that day.

I have photographs of him and older relations (now passed away) who knew him tell me that I am his double.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

Enoch asks:

quote:
I'd love to see a film that seriously replicated the railways of 1920/1 Ireland. It would be just about impossible to get anywhere near the real thing. But I think Brief Encounter is spoilt by all the love interest.

Look at The Great Train Robbery (1979), starring Sir Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Lesley-Anne Down and (as an extra) Augustine the Aleut. While set in the 1860s, the Irish Railway Preservation Society set up the train for them. The current TEC Rector of Aiken SC, a notorious and scandalous train addict and historian, told me that this was exactly the equipment and set-up which operated in Ireland until WWII.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
...

Don't get me started on D-Day films.
I'd be interested in your critique of "The Devil's Brigade" SPK.

The Canadian accents are crap, except the Canadian martial arts instructor. They should have all spoken like him. In actual fact there was no bagpipe march into camp, beats me where such a unit would find a piper anyway. Canadian tartan-wearing regiments kept their pipers for themselves. You had to have a pre-war militia piper because pipers weren't trained during wartime.

The American volunteers were not that bad, in actual fact they were quite good. The Canadian Army still had a high reputation because it had been at war since 1939 and still maintained its all-volunteer status.

The unit itself was real, and was in fact a mixed unit. Other than the usual Hollywood theatrics it wasn't a total howler, but not without its problems and it isn't outstanding. The First Special Service Force was disbanded when it became clear it was simply turning into an American unit at American disposal. Most transferred into the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion attached to the British 6th Airborne Division.

Portrayals of the Canadian Army in film fiction are very rare, There are a few low-budget CBC productions and glimpses in British or American productions. I look for them as a sport.

One of the best is [I]The One that Got Away[/I} about Franz von Werra. It is one of the only portrayals of a German PoW in Allied hands and what Allied POW practice was, and it accurately shows how Von Werra jumped the train at Brockville and escaped across the frozen St. Lawrence to a still-neutral United States. Astoundingly the film accurately shows an Ontario Provincial Police cruiser in correct colours with the name clearly visible on the side.

My problem with D-Day films is that they simply ignore Juno Beach and 3rd Canadian Division which landed there. My great-uncle was there. In film it is like this division, one fifth of the landing force, does not exist. Interestingly there were only two French-speaking units to land on D-Day. One was a Free French Commando, under the command of the British Army Commandos. The other was the Regiment de la Chaudiere, a Quebec-based regiment in the Canadian Army from Sherbrooke.

They landed mid-morning and some French civilians saw them in British-looking uniforms. "Hey Tommy". The reply came back that this was a French-speaking Canadian regiment. It caused the expected elation.

Four French-Canadian regiments saw combat in WWII: Le Royale 22mme Regiment, Les Regiments de la Chaudie, de la Maisonneuve and Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Enoch asks:

quote:
I'd love to see a film that seriously replicated the railways of 1920/1 Ireland. It would be just about impossible to get anywhere near the real thing. But I think Brief Encounter is spoilt by all the love interest.
Look at The Great Train Robbery (1979), starring Sir Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Lesley-Anne Down and (as an extra) Augustine the Aleut. While set in the 1860s, the Irish Railway Preservation Society set up the train for them. The current TEC Rector of Aiken SC, a notorious and scandalous train addict and historian, told me that this was exactly the equipment and set-up which operated in Ireland until WWII.

Later than that actually. Wooden nodied and wooden framed four and six-wheelers were operating into the early 1950s on CIE. It was only with Bulleid's purchase off railcars from AEC in 1952 that decimated the ranks of the rigid framed passenger stock.

Liveries are the worst think to replicate with the Irish railway scene -especially the pre-grouping liveries of companies such as the Midland & Great Western which were not well documented. Even the largest company's (the Great Southern and Western) carriage livery arouses passionate debate. The consensus the "Irish mob" reached was that they used LNWR Purple Lake, but without the off-white upper panels. Great Southern Railways changed it livery several times 1925-34, but then settled down to LMS Crimson Lake. The locomotive livery was a very dark grey - a "colour" scheme adopted by the GSWR in 1918.

The commonest gaffe with railways is BR Mark 1 stock being used in films set anywhere from the 1920s to 1951. Unfortunately, the Mk 1 is fairly distinctive and. moreover does not closely resemble any pre-Nationalization type. The closest is possibly the LNER Thompson steel bodied stock, but it was only 7 years older than the BR Mk1 design.

PD

[ 26. June 2012, 01:00: Message edited by: PD ]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
In the Second World War, well after independence, many Irish citizens joined the British Army. (Some still do.) A few thousand Irish soldiers deserted their army to join the British. They are politically controversial in Ireland to this day.

And at the end of the war, Eamon de Valera visited the German Embassy in Dublin to express his condolences on the death of Hitler.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I'm pretty sure "nitpicking about historical accuracy in TV shows and movies" falls under Heaven's remit rather than ours, so with the blessing of the Heavenly Host(s), I'm putting you all onboard a (very authentic) train to Heaven.

Trudy, Scrumptious Purgatory Host

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Oh yes, in "Downton" itself, a person in 1916 Yorkshire alights from a Metropolitan Railway train (how did it get there?) at a station painted in post-1923 Southern Railway green (Horsted Keynes).

Having said that, the general impression was fine. Anyway, "Downton" itself was in Gloucestershire (if that's where Highclere is).

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Anyway, "Downton" itself was in Gloucestershire (if that's where Highclere is).

Hampshire, actually (although it comes with a Reading postcode).

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

I never knew they'd moved it. That was clever. [Big Grin]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

And another thing.

What connection does an architecturally eclectic retro confection, obviously built by a nouveau riche parvenu in the nineteenth century, have with an abbey?

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
And another thing.

What connection does an architecturally eclectic retro confection, obviously built by a nouveau riche parvenu in the nineteenth century, have with an abbey?

One can hardly complain, as a Tudor-period nouveau riche parvenu likely built a manor house on the grounds of an abbey provided by (or purchased from) the King. There could be a few generations of country houses, given fires and/or money to build a newer version.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Well, quite possibly rebuilt on Abbey lands granted to some Tudor shyster at the Dissolution. cf Woburn, Fonthill, Wycombe, etc Abbeys.
(Cross-posted with Augustine the Aleut.)

[ 26. June 2012, 12:28: Message edited by: Albertus ]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

quote:
Anyway, "Downton" itself was in Gloucestershire (if that's where Highclere is).

Depends whether you mean the real or fictional house - Highclere is in Hampshire, but "Downton" is supposed to be in North Yorkshire.

The very first sentence of the first episode of the first series was an anachronism - it's just possible that a respectable middle-aged postmistress would blaspheme upon receiving a telegram with tragic news in 1912, but very unlikely that she would say 'Oh my God!' - this is a modern expression.

I quite like the series, but was disappointed that the death toll among Lady Mary's suitors decreased in the second season (ironically during the First World War when you'd expect them to be dropping like flies).

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Oh yes, in "Downton" itself, a person in 1916 Yorkshire alights from a Metropolitan Railway train (how did it get there?) at a station painted in post-1923 Southern Railway green (Horsted Keynes).

Huh! That's nothing! The street scenes in Brief Encounter are clearly set in the South East of England, and pretty much all the characters use south-eastern accents (not just the posh ones), and there are hints that the coal mines they are talkng about are in the Kent coal field - but the railway station is plainly in the north-west at the other end of England and has signs for trains to Lancaster. I doubt if there were many direct services from Kent to Lancaster, even in 1938.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

All true. But good reason for that: AIUI by that stage in the war it was considered safe to relax the blackout in order to film at night, under lights, in the north west, but still not in the south east. Hence choice of Carnforth rather than, say, Bromley South.

Posted by St Everild (# 3626) on :

/tangent/

There are some movies and TV shows set in Victorian times, where a troubled soul wanders into a deserted village church, sits down at the two manual organ and proceeds to play a fiendishly complicated piece on a thing that sounds like Westminster Abbey. And who exactly was pumping the bellows anyway?? Spoils it every time...

//tangent off//

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
In the Second World War, well after independence, many Irish citizens joined the British Army. (Some still do.) A few thousand Irish soldiers deserted their army to join the British. They are politically controversial in Ireland to this day.
And at the end of the war, Eamon de Valera visited the German Embassy in Dublin to express his condolences on the death of Hitler.

The latter remains controversial on this side of the Irish Sea to this day.

But to return to Downton, there was one piece of what looked like refreshing accuracy. At that era, several railway companies ran their own buses. If it was set in the North Riding, there's a bus which appears to be in North Eastern livery. I'm not sufficient of a nerd though to know whether it was a genuine North Eastern one or had been repainted to fit.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

They take all sorts of liberties. Inspector Morse drove round Radcliffe Square (which is a cobbled square in the city centre that you can't actually drive round as it isn't open to traffic), making a casual remark to Sergeant Lewis which 2 seconds later was completed in the open countryside. He managed to bypass the entire city centre and all the notorious traffic jams to suddenly get 5 miles away. Pretty amazing car, that Bentley.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by St Everild:
/tangent/

There are some movies and TV shows set in Victorian times, where a troubled soul wanders into a deserted village church, sits down at the two manual organ and proceeds to play a fiendishly complicated piece on a thing that sounds like Westminster Abbey. And who exactly was pumping the bellows anyway?? Spoils it every time...

//tangent off//

On a related theme, a year or two back I saw a television production of Hardy's Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, in which the congregation of a late nineteenth century Anglican village church were singing How Great Thou Art.

This hymn has Russian/Scandinavian origins, was not in Hymns Ancient And Modern, and only became popular when it was taken up by the Billy Graham people around the middle of the twentieth century.

Posted by busyknitter (# 2501) on :

For anyone who is really interested, listen to this Slate Lexicon Valley podcast about computer analysis of TV scripts comparing them with actual writing from the period in which they were set.

The software writer has looked at Downton Abbey, Mad Men and a few others.

It seems that the writers tend to be far more accurate about some topics than others. The language used to describe technology is generally quite close to the language used at the time, except when it comes to telephony for some reason.

But on the other hand, the language used to describe war and experiences of war is very inaccurate. Also swearwords, mainly because they wouldn't have been written down much in 't old days.

[ 27. June 2012, 08:39: Message edited by: busyknitter ]

Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Oh yes, in "Downton" itself, a person in 1916 Yorkshire alights from a Metropolitan Railway train (how did it get there?) at a station painted in post-1923 Southern Railway green (Horsted Keynes).
Huh! That's nothing! The street scenes in Brief Encounter are clearly set in the South East of England, and pretty much all the characters use south-eastern accents (not just the posh ones), and there are hints that the coal mines they are talkng about are in the Kent coal field - but the railway station is plainly in the north-west at the other end of England and has signs for trains to Lancaster. I doubt if there were many direct services from Kent to Lancaster, even in 1938.

The railway bits were filmed at Carnforth, the junction station north of Lancaster on the WCML. Unfortunately its main line platforms are now closed (1969 IIRC) but you can still catch a train to Barrow in Furness or Leeds, or going south, Lancaster/Morecambe from it.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
On a related theme, a year or two back I saw a television production of Hardy's Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, in which the congregation of a late nineteenth century Anglican village church were singing How Great Thou Art.

The famous 1941 film of How Green Was My Valley (which beat both Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon at the Oscars - that was a good year for films!) has them singing Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch (AKA Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah) to Cwm Rhondda. The story is undated, but Queen Victoria is still on the throne when the main character has left school and worked a couple of years in the mines, so most of the action is probably meant to be in the 1880s or 1890s. The tune Cwm Rhondda was written in 1905 or maybe even later.

At the end they also use the tune to which we usually sing Here is love, vast as the ocean (another translation of a Welsh original) This is at least possible because the tune had been published but it didn't become well-known till the early 20th century. It is now, like Cwn Rhondda, the sort of thing you would put on a soundtrack to say "We are in Wales" but it would not have been back then.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Pretty amazing car, that Bentley.

And disguised to look exactly like a Jaguar [Biased]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

If SPK was has Rogers Cable coverage (priced by Vampires), he might have enjoyed the Purple Plain, set in Burma with Gregory Peck as RCAF S/L Bert Forrester DSO DFC. The Vancouver Island chapter of the Burma Star Association, which I think has now had its final meeting, comprised an odd collection of RCAF who served in Burma, a few remittance men, at least one member of the Gold Coast Division, and a posse of retired Sikhs who fleshed out to their pensions with a few hours a week with the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires (I did a ministerial briefing note on them about 20 years ago).

He had his Canada flashes on the usual RAF tropical kit, and spoke with a passible middle-upper anglophone accent, as one runs into with Bishop's University types of that period. Possibly because it was shot in 1954, the film avoids the styled haircuts of our era, which infest many WWII-period films.

Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :

Oh, don't get me started on hairstyles and make-up - or even the way women comport themselves about on the sets. Almost every Shakespearean play put on to screen is guilty of some dreadful historical inaccuracies. But then, at its heart, its still fiction, ain't it?

As is Downton Abbey. The willing suspension of belief is expected of the viewer in order to just enjoy the story. I figure it's a bit like science fiction. You just enjoy the other-worldliness of it, because once you start to look hard, you find all sorts of holes.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

I was also surprised at Daisy's uncovered hair at her deathbed marriage to William.

While not claiming any expertise in the areas of women's fashions and wedding etiquette, I am very aware of the general truth that people in the past were obsessive, to a degree which can seem to us fetishistic, about the necessity for headgear, especially in public, outdoors, or on formal occasions, and particularly in the case of women.

This point is ignored in countless film and television historical productions.

Wouldn't Daisy have been expected to wear a hat or veil for such a solemn ceremony?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Wouldn't Daisy have been expected to wear a hat or veil for such a solemn ceremony?

Probably. It was almost universal for women to cover their heads in church until well into my adolescence. It was also still fairly widespread for them to wear hats indoors, particularly when not in their own house. We were taught at primary school that a boy removed his hat indoors but a girl did not need to.

A woman would probably have worn a hat when visiting a hospital patient during the Great War. She would also have had a natural instinct to cover her head so as to 'church' even the unusual location. However, we also have to allow for the slight possibility that the writer or producer knew this and made the omission intentionally or instinctively so as to express the drama of the situation.

It would be interesting to know whether most of those women who got married in Registry Offices at that time wore hats to do so. I suspect they did.

I've a sort of recollection that the vicar in that scene wore a coloured stole - the wrong colour by modern standards - in that scene rather than a black scarf, and am not sure how likely that would have been before at least the 1930s in a rural parish dominated by a peer who was almost certainly the patron.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I am very aware of the general truth that people in the past were obsessive, to a degree which can seem to us fetishistic, about the necessity for headgear

I remember some period enactment in which a gardener (possibly Capability Brown) is talking to his ducal employer, outdoors. Not only is the Duke not wearing a hat (on top of his admittedly OTT wig) but Brown keeps his on while addressing him.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
...I am very aware of the general truth that people in the past were obsessive, to a degree which can seem to us fetishistic, about the necessity for headgear, especially in public, outdoors, or on formal occasions, and particularly in the case of women.

Hats *are* a nececssity!

If I were to spend all day outdoors working in the fields on a day like today without a hat, I would be seriously injured. I mighet even die. I can sunburn in twenty minutes, I've never had a tan in my life (though my skin was a little darker than normal after one and a half years in Africa), and one stupid day when I went for a walk in Scotland on a sunny day without a hat, after maybe four or five hours my head was blistered and literally bleeding.

There are a lot of people like me in these misty islands!

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

"There are a lot of people like me in these misty islands!"

I noticed that when I lived there. Then summer comes (that week around the middle of July) and you all go out in your skimpiest clothes and fry yourselves. Or you go on holiday to Spain and do same. I worry about y'all.

OT (on tangent): I'm bothered by the lack of hats in Regency/Victorian films, too, but what bothers me most is the grown women failing to put their hair up.

There's a scene in the latest "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," -- the one with Eddie Redmayne -- where Tess is dressed in her best, going to meet her in-laws for the first time, with her thick dark hair, spread over her shoulders and hanging down her back almost to her waist. When she asks her friends if she looks like a lady, I can't help but laugh out loud.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I noticed that when I lived there. Then summer comes (that week around the middle of July)

Huh! Its usually three weeks! And they can happen at any time from April to September.

We're having one of them right now. We had one in April, another just after Easter, that makes three, so the horrid hot weather is probably soon to be over for the year. I hope.

Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :

[Frown]

We're not having summer 'oop north' right now. Oh, it's fairly warm, but it's grey and showery. It was good at the end of March.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like it too hot! I am concerned that going to Croatia soon I will find it exactly that: 33C by day and 21C at night apparently!! [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

30C in South London earlier today. Smelly, dirty, sticky, sunburny,. Even the birds don't seem to be flying about as much as usual. London just isn't designed for hot weather. Probably a sensible thing as we don't get that much of it. But wehen we do its horrible,

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

Respectability, habit and convention seem to have been as, or more, important than comfort and safety in the past when it came to hats.

Racist superstition was also sometimes a factor, as in the myth that white people in India and Africa, unlike the "natives", required a pith helmet to protect them from the deadly sun.

Here in Australia everyone wore hats until about half way through the twentieth century, and for the last few decades authorities have been urging us to resume the habit, as part of the fight against our world's worst rates of sun-caused skin cancer.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Respectability, habit and convention seem to have been as, or more, important than comfort and safety in the past when it came to hats.

Clothes in general: a friend has made historically accurate Renaissance, 17th and 18th C costumes, and those things weighed a ton. There's a reason people in paintings are standing about - there was little else you could do (but it was alright, because you had servants to do other stuff for you).

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

Hallmark's 'Blackbeard'. Just sitting here watching it. Chuckled at the opening credits where on 'ye olde mappe of Britain' the English Duchy of Cornwall is labelled 'Wales'! [Eek!]

Hardly any wonder the English had all that trouble subduing the Welsh!

Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
Hallmark's 'Blackbeard'. Just sitting here watching it. Chuckled at the opening credits where on 'ye olde mappe of Britain' the English Duchy of Cornwall is labelled 'Wales'!

Hardly any wonder the English had all that trouble subduing the Welsh!

The Cornwall was a Celtic (and Christian [Biased]

) kingdom before the English became the English. It certainly had more in common with Wales than with the AngloSaxons. The English put down Cornwall by force of arms and have administered it ever since, although, constitutionally,
it is not an English county.

All long before Downton, though!

[ 29. June 2012, 15:53: Message edited by: Morlader ]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Respectability, habit and convention seem to have been as, or more, important than comfort and safety in the past when it came to hats.
Clothes in general: a friend has made historically accurate Renaissance, 17th and 18th C costumes, and those things weighed a ton. There's a reason people in paintings are standing about - there was little else you could do (but it was alright, because you had servants to do other stuff for you).

An actor of my acquaintance tells me that this is very much so-- she said that one of the reasons why they wore layers of cotton or linen was to absorb perspiration and protect the silk and woollen fabric. She told me that period garments affect one's movements, and that one of her first lessons was how to walk differently when stayed and corsetted etc. I have since thought on this and realize that, when in cassock or in a formal suit, I tend to carry myself differently.

I have since noticed that, when viewing historic interiors, that they didn't have a lot of seating. Looking at the Sierra y Pambley house in Leon (he was a reformist noble of the 1800s and his house was untouched and un-redecorated since then), there were only a few chairs and settees. The guide told us that, at most social events, all but the most frail were expected to stand for several hours. Only in a very informal and intimate setting, and the English-style tea got to be quite fashionable for this reason, would one expect to sit and relax.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Morlader:
... constitutionally, it is not an English county.

Er, yes it is. Or rather was until recently a county with the same legal status as any other, and is now what they call a "uinitary authority" and a "ceremonial county". There's no law or treaty or custom that says diffetently.

[ 29. June 2012, 17:01: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by badger@thesett (# 16422) on :

surely the biggest error was the making of the show followed with watching the show.

so glad not living in a time where the rich subjugate the poor, where going to Eton and Oxford and belonging to the Bullingdon Club with all it's hedonism won't lead to being prime minister... or chancellor of the exchequer or hold any other sway over the poor and needy... oh drat... just realised we do

they should play Kill the Poor by Dead Kennedy's as their theme tune

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Morlader:
... constitutionally, it is not an English county.
Er, yes it is. Or rather was until recently a county with the same legal status as any other, and is now what they call a "uinitary authority" and a "ceremonial county". There's no law or treaty or custom that says diffetently.

Brave man, ken. Go anywhere west of about Ealing now and they'll be pelting you with pilchards for saying that, you know.

Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :

If the thread's now about generally historically inaccurate films/TV, I have one shining bad example for you.

Braveheart

And it gets used to encourage nationalism [brick wall]

Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :

quote:

It would be interesting to know whether most of those women who got married in Registry Offices at that time wore hats to do so. I suspect they did.

Not exacttly scientific, but I have a photo of an aunt who married in a registry office in the late 1940's, and she is wearing a hat.

(edited to fix code)

[ 29. June 2012, 21:20: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Scots lass:
If the thread's now about generally historically inaccurate films/TV, I have one shining bad example for you.

Braveheart

And it gets used to encourage nationalism

For historically inaccurate Mel Gibson films, I'll raise you The Patriot against Braveheart.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

My wife tells me that another reason why women, especially mothers, wore such long and voluminous dresses in the past was because they finished up in such a leaky mess in the nether regions after multiple childbirths, that they had to wear lots of cloths under their dresses to keep themselves plugged up.

Thank goodness for modern contraception and postnatal surgery.

Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:

quote:
Originally posted by Scots lass:
If the thread's now about generally historically inaccurate films/TV, I have one shining bad example for you.

Braveheart

And it gets used to encourage nationalism
For historically inaccurate Mel Gibson films, I'll raise you The Patriot against Braveheart.

I've not seen it, but from I remember about the reviews when it came out I will grant you that one!

Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :

Mel Gibson is not interested in History: he's there to prove a point (his). [Killing me]

The more anti-English the point the better.

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :

Braveheart is the one film above all others that re-enactors point and laugh at.

Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eigon:
Braveheart is the one film above all others that re-enactors point and laugh at.

It was therapy for Mel.

But he needed lots more.
[Devil]

That man has a few internal demons he tries to externalise.

But they keep coming back. [Eek!]

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:

quote:

It would be interesting to know whether most of those women who got married in Registry Offices at that time wore hats to do so. I suspect they did.

Not exacttly scientific, but I have a photo of an aunt who married in a registry office in the late 1940's, and she is wearing a hat.

(edited to fix code)

Yes, my grandparents married in a London register office in the mid-30s, and my grandmother wore a hat.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
For historically inaccurate Mel Gibson films, I'll raise you The Patriot against Braveheart.

To be fair, he just took history as Americans sincerely remember it and made it into a movie. On the other hand, besides the happy slave myth, depictions of British atrocities, and some name changes, was it really so inaccurate?
[Razz]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
For historically inaccurate Mel Gibson films, I'll raise you The Patriot against Braveheart.
To be fair, he just took history as Americans sincerely remember it and made it into a movie. On the other hand, besides the happy slave myth, depictions of British atrocities, and some name changes, was it really so inaccurate?

When you put it that way, I suppose that my objections are petty-- indeed, reference to escaped slaves on the Loyalist side would have just complicated the film's narrative. I have heard two other criticisms, one that he somehow managed to put a New England dairy farm into indigo and cotton country, and the other about the ubiquitous habit of men walking around in puffy shirt sleeves without waistcoats and jackets-- my historical actor friend points out that this is on a par with having 20th/21st century lawyers in their boxers and Tshirts addressing juries.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

A lot of the "inaccuracies" are dramatic license, I think - acceptable because they are possible, if not common. The three raised in the OP come into this I think.

Others like singing to Cwm Rhondda before it had been written are wrong, but IMO fogiveable, because they are meant to say "this is in Wales". In truth, if life was represented accurately from the mid 1800s and earlier, we would not recognise it - especially if we consider church services, and other forms of socialising.

There is a strong sense we have that everything form Victorian England has always been there, forgetting that the Victorians introduced so much. I am watching a new BBC series taking families back 100 years to see how family life was, and they discovered that "family life" as such did not exist 100 years ago.

The Dickensian "chirpy chappy" urchin never existed. They were foul mouthed thieves and criminals. Life was cheap and dangerous.

Posted by Morlader (# 16040) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Morlader:
... constitutionally, it is not an English county.
Er, yes it is. Or rather was until recently a county with the same legal status as any other, and is now what they call a "uinitary authority" and a "ceremonial county". There's no law or treaty or custom that says diffetently.

But there are several "statutory instruments" dating from the fourteenth century giving the Duke of Cornwall rights in Cornwall equivalent to the Sovereign of England in England. The intention was, and still is, that the English wouldn't have support the heir to the throne from taxation as the (then) rich tin mines in Cornwall would provide him with more than adequate income for his household.

The different status of Cornwall was recognised as late as the 1990s - sorry, I've lost the reference - when the Westminster Parliament agreed the inhabitants of Cornwall were content with the English administration (nobody thought to ask the Cornish - actually, due to historical ethnic cleansing and more recent colonisation, probably a majority DO accept Westminster rule. Doesn't make it right, though).

Anyway, this tangent started with marks on a map. Perhaps references to West Wales, Cornubia and other non-English territory west of the Tamar provide the justification for the original DA map.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
the ubiquitous habit of men walking around in puffy shirt sleeves without waistcoats and jackets-- my historical actor friend points out that this is on a par with having 20th/21st century lawyers in their boxers and Tshirts addressing juries.

Indeed. Squire Weston's unmarried housekeeper is able to boast virtuously of never having so much as seen a man in his shirtsleeves.

And I can remember my grandmother, having caught sight of a cross-country run, coming to tell us that there were men out there running past in their drawers!

Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
And I can remember my grandmother, having caught sight of a cross-country run, coming to tell us that there were men out there running past in their drawers!

Was that in horror or in a "Quick! Go and look!" way?

Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Wouldn't Daisy have been expected to wear a hat or veil for such a solemn ceremony?
Probably. It was almost universal for women to cover their heads in church until well into my adolescence. It was also still fairly widespread for them to wear hats indoors, particularly when not in their own house. We were taught at primary school that a boy removed his hat indoors but a girl did not need to.

A woman would probably have worn a hat when visiting a hospital patient during the Great War. She would also have had a natural instinct to cover her head so as to 'church' even the unusual location. However, we also have to allow for the slight possibility that the writer or producer knew this and made the omission intentionally or instinctively so as to express the drama of the situation.

It would be interesting to know whether most of those women who got married in Registry Offices at that time wore hats to do so. I suspect they did.

I've a sort of recollection that the vicar in that scene wore a coloured stole - the wrong colour by modern standards - in that scene rather than a black scarf, and am not sure how likely that would have been before at least the 1930s in a rural parish dominated by a peer who was almost certainly the patron.

I'm pretty sure Anna was wearing a hat in the Registry Office when she became Mrs. Bates.

Banner Lady is right - those of us who understand historical costuming often engage in eye rollery with period dramas on TV or film. I usually use the Branagh-Thompson "Much Ado About Nothing" as an example. The women are running around in their underwear (those flowy muslin things? UNDERWEAR. We're not even getting into the "Adult women cover their heads" thing), the men's natty military outfits are totally wrong for the period, and the acting is SO compelling that I was able to forget all about it.

I have to say that during that wedding scene I was thinking "Is that legal?" I almost posted on Question Time [Biased]

. I know that there were, at the time, VERY strict rules on where a wedding could take place and be counted as legal. I'm still not entirely sure on how much that has been relaxed - very much a Pond Difference between England and the US, where if your officiant is legal, your venue will be by default.

There's also the bit about banns vs. licenses blah blah blah.

In general though I attributed that to my tenure in Eccles and figured "Forget it, kid, it's Chinatown" (erm, Hollywood/TV).

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Scots lass:

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
And I can remember my grandmother, having caught sight of a cross-country run, coming to tell us that there were men out there running past in their drawers!
Was that in horror or in a "Quick! Go and look!" way?

This was a woman who wore her corsets to bed.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
For historically inaccurate Mel Gibson films, I'll raise you The Patriot against Braveheart.
To be fair, he just took history as Americans sincerely remember it and made it into a movie. On the other hand, besides the happy slave myth, depictions of British atrocities, and some name changes, was it really so inaccurate?

You sound like a version of 'What have the Romans ever done for us?'

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