A Year in the Life of Downton Abbey: Seasonal Celebrations, Traditions, and Recipes (36 page)

A traditional way to serve game birds is to cut a piece of bread the size of each bird, toast lightly and spread with butter. About 10 minutes before the end of the birds’ cooking time, slide a piece of toast under each bird, to soak up all the cooking juices. Serve the birds on the toast, with a pile of watercress and any other accompaniments of your choice.

APPROXIMATE COOKING TIMES

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Using your hands, smear softened butter all over the birds and season generously with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Lay the birds on a roasting rack set in an oven tray. Roast for the time directed left, basting occasionally and turning the birds over halfway through cooking.

Turn off the oven, leaving the door ajar, and leave the birds to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

The First World War was to have an unexpected effect on the sport, however. Hunting and shooting had been suspended during the war years and when it returned, there was an entirely different aspect to it in the minds of some. Cannadine puts it best in
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy:
‘After so much slaughter on the Somme, even the mass extermination of birds seemed somehow distasteful.’ Daisy Warwick wrote in her memoir,
Life’s Ebb and Flow,
about her aversion to any kind of bloodsport after the war: ‘I am not alone in this feeling. Men friends – themselves crack shots – have told me that although they formerly enjoyed the shooting season, they can no longer find pleasure in killing birds or ground game, from a new feeling of reluctance to take life of any kind.’

Cannadine believes it was really only King George V’s enthusiasm for the sport, which his country hosts at Welbeck, Elveden, Holkham or Chatsworth would feel obliged to arrange, that allowed it to continue in the Edwardian manner. (George V’s father, King Edward VII, famously enjoyed shooting parties, but although he certainly shot a lot of birds, I think he enjoyed the party side of things as much, if not more. King George V just wanted to shoot down as many birds as he possibly could.) The farmer A. G. Street saw it somewhat differently: he recalled a ‘heavy weight’ lifting from the population at the end of the war, which sent everyone ‘pleasure mad’. As he wrote his memoir, looking back from the vantage point of the Depression, he must have felt as if those years after the war were especially indulgent. He calls it ‘a tawdry life’ – in which farmers swanked in motor cars, swapped their breeches for plus-fours and a blue suit for a dinner jacket. But it seems entirely understandable that after all the grief and tragedy, many men and women would seek to make the most of what could be a very short life.

Each sport brought its own set of rules, from dress to conduct. Each hunt would have its own costume, but these tended not to vary too greatly from either a scarlet or dark-green coat. These would be worn with white knee-breeches, top-boots, a tall hat or black velvet cap with a stiff peak, spurs, of course, and a stylish cashmere scarf, fastened by a pin. Women would wear a tight-fitting habit, made with a sort of apron skirt over breeches (they were largely riding astride rather than side-saddle by 1924). They would often wear a high hat with a short veil, with other elegant accessories – gloves, a whip. They did not wear scarlet jackets, although some might have a scarlet waistcoat. For shooting, men wore heavy tweed plus-fours (trousers that end just below the knee) and jackets, with long socks and walking boots, together with a flat cap. Although women were not shooting, they would dress almost as if they were, with a skirt and jacket in tweed too.

Evelyn Napier

Returning home, sportsmen and women would often be filthy from the splattered mud of the fields. This was a particular problem with hunting and it was down to the poor valet to deal with it. Ernest King, in his memoir
The Green Baize Door,
had an unusual, if effective, method: ‘From horse and rider perspiring, from a fall in a muddy ditch or field, they can come back in a pretty mess, especially the coat tails. When in this state we would ask the housemaid to save us the contents of the chamber-pots, at least a bucketful. It was truly miraculous in getting the dirt out. That was immediately followed, I hasten to add, by brushing with clean water. I’ve often wondered if all the smart and fashionable hunting folk ever knew of the means taken to keep their coats so smartly turned out.’

Variations on this oaty gingerbread are traditionally enjoyed in Yorkshire – Downton Abbey’s own county – on Bonfire Night. Keep it in a tin for a few days before cutting and eating.

MAKES ONE 8 INCH SQUARE CAKE

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a deep 8 inch square cake tin and line the base with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, mixed spice and baking powder into a large mixing bowl, then stir in the oatmeal.

Place the butter, sugar and molasses in a small pan and gently heat until melted, then add into the bowl. Stir well to combine.

Break the eggs into a bowl, beat well and then stir into the mixture.

Spoon into the prepared cake tin and smooth the top. Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Take care not to overcook the cake or it will be dry.

Cool in the tin, and when completely cold, remove, wrap well and store in an airtight tin.

Mary’s bewitched suitor, Tony Gillingham, whom we meet for the first time in series four, fits into this world perfectly; brought up a gentleman, he would hunt, shoot and fish with aplomb. The actor playing him, Tom Cullen, enjoyed learning the rules and etiquette for a young man in 1924, from taking his hands out of his pockets, to not slouching and getting in the saddle. Even the clothes were a part of this: ‘It was the first time I’d ever had a suit made for me and I know Julian and Alastair spent ages selecting a beautiful country fabric. It makes you feel like a completely different person. It wasn’t until I started to wear the costume that I had an educated idea about how he walked and held himself.’

The challenge for Tom was establishing his character when everyone else had been there for some time before: ‘I wanted to make sure he was someone you felt existed outside the house,’ he explains. ‘The parallels are interesting, with him and Mary both taking on their estates. His father has died recently and he’s struggling with the enormity of the task before him.’ Despite his upbringing, Tom believes Tony is uncomfortable with the life he’s in: ‘He’s inherently quite a sad man, trapped in a system he no longer believes in. You get the feeling he’s hiding away and when he meets Mary, she makes him feel alive, that maybe he does have a chance to live a life that he might actually want. She gives him vitality.’ Because there is such a large cast of characters on this show, the actors face a challenge, but one that excites them, as Tom explains: ‘It’s like a tapestry – you have to make a lot of your own choices, but that’s something Julian wants.’

For this reason, Tom developed a whole backstory for Tony, beginning with sitting down with Alastair Bruce and tracing his character’s possible lineage in
Burke’s Peerage
(the definitive guide to genealogy, lineage and heraldry, from peerage to landed gentry; it’s been in use since 1826): ‘We know he’s a viscount, so that helped. I decided he was one of three brothers and two of them have died in the war, with his father dying shortly after he returns from serving at Jutland in the Navy. Suddenly, he’s been left to take on this entire estate and is struggling financially,’ says Tom. ‘I feel that, despite his aristocratic background, he is a fairly progressive and humble man. He doesn’t believe in money or land to validate himself, he doesn’t feel the pressure Lord Grantham feels to carry on the legacy of his estate. But he works hard, he’s got his own business and doesn’t sit around expecting money to come to him. In that way, he’s like Matthew – he wants to feel like he has a place in society.’