Downton Abbey 2

[Muerrisch]

Officers wore pyjamas and dressing-gowns, or perhaps night-shirts, depending on their condition, and uniform and greatcoats when outside. As far as I know, officers never wore hospital blues, either inside or outside.

And Lady Sybil's uniform? A bit of a puzzle. In some ways it didn't look bad, but why a grey dress? VADs in hospitals affiliated to St. John's (as opposed to the British Red Cross) wore grey dresses, but then she was wearing a BRCS brassard, rather than a St. John one. So I would have expected her to have been in a blue dress, which was by far the most common. And she wouldn't have had those short, starched white cuffs on while she was working. But her hat was alright, and the overall impression rather better than some I've seen. The VAD uniform was the least of their problems

Sue

Please how does a BRCS brassard differ from the Geneva Convention Red Cross? And what about the St John variety.

I just got to know! [Dirty Harry, I think]

[Sue Light]

Please how does a BRCS brassard differ from the Geneva Convention Red Cross? And what about the St John variety.

I'm not sure that the BRCS brassard did differ from the Geneva Convention Red Cross - but the VAD in Downton was wearing what appeared to be a regulation brassard for BRCS VADs. However, the regulations for a St. John VAD (who would have worn a grey dress) state:

A VAD of St. John Ambulance Brigade will wear the Brigade badge on the left sleeve of the dress, half-way between the point of the shoulder and the elbow, on a black silk or petersham armlet.

I'm sure I have an image somewhere of one of these - I'll look it out later.

Sue

[Sue Light]

Here:

Sue

[WilliamRev]

I had been wondering when the cliches that everyone knows about the war would kick in, and they have all suddenly arrived at once: a lad shot for cowardice, a servant with shell-shock, an officer permanently blinded by gas (and committing suicide to add to the drama). I'm not saying these didn't happen. It's just that they arrived seemingly all at once in episode two .

I was left wondering just how many men were permanently blinded by gas? I have mentioned this before on the forum so sorry for the repetition, but in late Oct 1918 my grandfather (see avatar) was wounded, graded as "severe", when a mustard-gas shell landed in the cellar where he and his men were sheltering, and he got a facefull of the stuff. He was shipped straight back to Southampton where he spend a few months at Netley Hospital.

He was blind for many days and his throat was agony and a total mess for weeks. But he made an almost total recovery in due course, as he had been assurred he would (so no need for suicidal thoughts) - he told me that his eyes were never quite the same afterwards, but he didn't have to wear spectacles until middle-age.

William

[Tim P]

I find it an enjoyable watch, the TV is rammed these days with celebrity gossip wannabe reality on ice ballroom zzzz factor toss so a departure from this, in my eyes at least, can be forgiven.

Revisionism is the price we pay for drama, usually because the Tristans and Farquars that are drawn into the world of luvvieism to write want to offer the viewers entertainment, and can be liberal in the extreme regarding artistic license (most having no exposure to military matters at all)....they are more concerned with the plot than with shoehorning (or ignoring) inaccuracies to make it flow. This is easier to forgive in a drama than in a documentary however, so I just enjoy the ride.

Mind you, I can't watch the bill or similar for the very reasons I have excused above but then there is a dearth of WW1 viewing.

[Sue Light]

I was left wondering just how many men were permanently blinded by gas? I have mentioned this before on the forum so sorry for the repetition, but in late Oct 1918 my grandfather (see avatar) was wounded, graded as "severe", when a mustard-gas shell landed in the cellar where he and his men were sheltering, and he got a facefull of the stuff. He was shipped straight back to Southampton where he spend a few months at Netley Hospital.

Sir Arthur Hurst wrote 'Medical Diseases of the War' in 1916, with a second edition with corrections in September 1918. It was then re-published as 'Medical Diseases of War' during WW2. In the 1940 edition, he looks back to the Great War and sums up mustard gas injuries to the eyes with:

Among all the cases of mustard-gas poisoning in the British Army only ten men developed permanent opacities of sufficient severity to impair vision and four panophthalmitis requiring removal of an eye.

That does sound an under estimation, but that's what it says! And going back to Downton, blind officers would never be stuck in a tin-pot place like that. By 1917 that officer would be having the best care possible in one of the St. Dunstan's hostels in London, and tip-tapping his way round Regent's Park, not a back yard in Yorkshire.

Sue

[Auchonvillers]

Hello,

As regards to the hospital scenes in last nights "Downton Abbey" the beds used in the scenes weren't actually "Army" ones. They were in fact Naval ones. However they were genuine beds from that period of the war though, and a source also tells me that the sheets and blankets had Naval insignia on them too.

A question for the hospital experts amongst you. Would the Army and Navy have shared resourses such as beds during the real war?

Reagards to all Mark.

[Moonraker]

There's a letter in one of today's papers that suggested that only officers serving in the front line wore rank emblems on their shoulders with everyone else having them on the lower sleeves until 1920.

Moonraker

[delta]

IIRC

Mustard gas was not used before Autumn 1917 so presumably the blindness from the time of Arras (Sporing 1917) was caused by something else

[Alan Tucker]

I also thought Julian Fellowes was pushing his luck by having the cook's nephew as a SAD which Hon.Col Grantham finds out the truth about and tells her.Very artificial.

[Tim P]

I agree. keeping us talking though eh?

[Seadog]

Yes it certainly does!

[Steven Broomfield]

It seems to me that the author has thrown in every half-remembered cliche about the Great War he can remember, jumbled it all up a bit and then slapped it on with a trowel.

[squirrel]

There's a letter in one of today's papers that suggested that only officers serving in the front line wore rank emblems on their shoulders with everyone else having them on the lower sleeves until 1920.

Moonraker

That sounds like somebody attempting to tidy up a complex subject that was sometimes an individual and sometimes a unit decision and sometimes also with no apparent regularity or order.

It seems to me that the author has thrown in every half-remembered cliche about the Great War he can remember, jumbled it all up a bit and then slapped it on with a trowel.

Quite, but then, don't they always?

[Gibbo]

I was relieved when it was revealed that the cook's nephew had been executed for cowardice. Given the popular image of the war, it was likely that somebody would be, and I had feared that it would be William.

[salesie]

It seems to me that the author has thrown in every half-remembered cliche about the Great War he can remember, jumbled it all up a bit and then slapped it on with a trowel.

Pretty much sums it up, Steven - I cannot help asking myself, how long before Lions & Donkeys makes an appearance?

Though I'm disappointed with it so far, I am prepared to stick with it for a little longer - after all, it is in essence social drama and in that context the war (and its effect on pedants) is (or should be) somewhat coincidental; perhaps Lord Fellowes' script will focus more on the human drama now that he's set the highly cliched and poorly researched "bigger picture"? I'm not too hopeful, though, that it will improve. Up to now, the well-capable author's script seems itself to be overwhelmed by said "bigger picture" (not to mention being made a little disjointed by the apparent increased frequency of commercial breaks).

Cheers-salesie.

[ianw]

strictly speaking I think not a SIW ..... he put himself in danger and a sniper obliged ...... is that a SIW?

My understanding is that the powers that be were shrewd enough to recognise wounds from deliberate exposure to enemy fire as an SIW, similarly the affects of deliberately exposing one's flesh to mustard gas, chucking a Mills into an alcove and exposing your hand and arm to the fragments etc.

[SiegeGunner]

I gather that newspapers and news websites are reporting criticism of the speed at which the time-line is progressing, having already joined the war in 1916. I should have thought it was obvious, with the series clearly targeted at the US market following the success of the first series, that Julian Fellowes is eager to move the action into a time-frame where American audiences know that there was a war on ...

[Roger H]

Crikey - there was I thinking I was watching a drama not a documentary.

Roger

[alex falbo]

As an American I can safely say that the majority of my countrymen hardly remember anything about WWI. And all the cliches and myths are abound for those that do recall from their college history. This series will only reinforce those ideas unfortunately. Sad to see that mainstream UK public has yet to rid the donkey's line either. You'd think with all the interest and more recent objective scholarship the ship would have righted itself. Brace yourself Salesie, for the stupid generals line is certainly marching forth inexorably from the mouths of these characters in light of their experiences in this 'brave new world.' Yet to watch the second installment. Its a shame the creators didn't take full advantage of the living historian's expertise. Cheers though to those that did take part.

As for the SIW, I thought it was horribly cheap. I was waiting for his platoon sergeant to lambast him for his cowardice or perhaps dark scowls from his mates. Such an easily reprehensible wound surely would have landed him in court martial territory. I liked how it was done in A Very Long Engagement when Manec carries out his SIW. The platoon sergeant chides him while two poilus try to reason with the nco in defense of Manec. And of course, Manec was punished.

[Steven Broomfield]

Having watched all of one episode, I can honestly and truthfully say that I was very disappointed. My view was that it creaked and groaned on the plot front so much that there was no way it could live up to the hype. OK, I might "get into" it, were I to give it longer, but it was so disappointing and so poor that I really have no desire to try any more.

It really did make me yearn for Upstairs Downstairs - surely the benchmark by which we should judge Downton Abbey?

And I take Roger's point that it is a drama, not a documentary, but there has to be a point where drama, set in the real world, has to be judged. Were this Middle Earth, I'd accept any old tosh is alloweable, because it didn't exist. But Downton is set in the Great War: to get the hospital scenes as wrong as Sue points out really is unforgiveable.

There's a point where artistic licence and make-believe clash.

[Seadog]

Another aspect of this dire programme:

From the Oracle aka Daily Mail!

Downton Abbey

Norman

[squirrel]

Having watched the first series, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and having watched these two episodes, I am particularly disappointed with the speed of the stories, the apparent context of scenes seemingly unconnected and the characters playing what I can only describe as a series of vignettes. There are some fine actors in the cast, but the dialogue being so brief hardly taxes them and verges on the "ham". Dame Maggie Smith had some wonderful lines in the last series but so far her talent has been wasted with few lines and even fewer cutting remarks. Least said about some of the WW1 scenes and "clangers" the better. I am hoping that it will improve but do not live in any great hope or expectation.

[Sue Light]

And I notice that the link above shows an image from the next programme in which Thomas (the RAMC orderly who would never be working in a small auxiliary hospital) now has a third stripe up, so yet another reward - presumably for keeping the RAMC flag flying single-handed in extraordinary circumstances.

I don't think that pointing out such gross errors is pedantic. I'm quite willing to excuse some inaccuracies - when it comes to nursing and medical TV/film scenes set in the Great War the vast majority are incorrect, so it's something I've had to get used to. There are so few written sources about the medical services of the period, and what exists both in print and on the web is invariably laced with errors. The problem here is that such a high-profile programme as Downton will now do the rounds for years, one way or another, and the content will be taken as the truth, and repeated endlessly as such.

Sue

[Andy Wade]

The problem here is that such a high-profile programme as Downton will now do the rounds for years, one way or another, and the content will be taken as the truth, and repeated endlessly as such.

Sue

Indeed. Just like the lions and donkeys quote, seems it will never be shaken off. I doubt we'll hear those actual words said, but I bet the implication will be made.

Enjoyed reading your opinion of the hospital scenes.