Military and Gun Related Aspects of Downton Abbey
Yes a soap opera, but I confess I like it and it's TV my wife and I both enjoy. I was impressed with the WW-1 trench warfare scenes and the uniforms. And military bearing when Downton became an officers' convalescent center. There are some critical comments on the Internet about the plot of the show being that the big cheese, Lord Grantham is "too old" to go to war. His birth date is given variously as 1866 and 1874. He would have entered Sandhurst about 1884-1886. We know he fought in the Boer War and took part in the 1911 Coronation Parade. But I understand what they are saying; the war was run by commanders Lord Grantham's age.
One critic recalls that THE COMPLETE PEERAGE in 1930 ran a list of all if the peers of the realm and sons of peers who served in the war and it ran to 67 pages. After the 1915 Zeppelin Raids there was no doubt that the first families of England willingly sent their fathers and sons to war.
The series also shows the landed gentry shooting birds with doubles and the servants maintaining the pieces. Immediately after the war, the Granthams visit their broke relatives in Scotland and they are shown practicing and stalking with Lee Speed Sporters.
Yeah it's a bit of a soap opera, but if you are an Anglophile and like the 1912-early 30's period it's pretty good... There's more to come... And I predict grandchild George with be the right age to fly a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain. I think the chauffeur, Bransom, who emigrated to America, will come back in WW-2 in American uniform as some kind of logistics guy.
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