The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era (17 page)

All the Crawley girls would have played with the family
dolls’ house in the nursery; a scale model of the house
would have been made by the estate carpenter. Unlike
Queen Mary’s dolls’ house, which was made, in 1924,
to designs by Sir Edward Lutyens, the Crawleys’ is a
conventional townhouse. The best producers of miniature
furniture and artefacts were all German firms, but they
ceased to be patronised by the British after the war.

A young footman like Alfred would quickly be
brought up to speed on gentlemen’s clothes
and fine tailoring, as he would be expected
to attend any male guests staying at Downton
without their own valet. Cleaning, ironing, laying
out and packing clothes all came within his remit,
as did mending jobs such as sewing on buttons.
Also, a footman might remove change from
a gentleman’s trouser pockets to make the
trousers hang better – and to supplement
his own wages.

O’Brien
Pay no attention. You’ve got a
nice manner, Alfred. You’re not vain like
Thomas. They’ll like that.

A
lfred Nugent does not have the most auspicious of starts to his new job as footman at Downton Abbey. As the nephew of Miss O’Brien, he is hardly likely to be embraced warmly into the fold, nor, despite his long search for a footman after the war, is Carson pleased by Alfred’s arrival: Lady Grantham appointed him without his say-so, thanks to O’Brien’s plotting. Furthermore, as Carson huffily points out, he is ‘too tall. No footman should ever be over 6 foot.’ And to further complicate matters, Alfred has no experience as a footman – he was a soldier in the war and then worked in a hotel. His appointment looks unlikely to ensure the smooth running of Downton Abbey.

Fortunately, Alfred is not cunning like his aunt but rather guileless and sweet. As Matt Milne, the actor playing him, says: ‘He is determined to make it work. It’s a big opportunity, and he is just going to keep his head down and work hard.’ Even Lady Mary thinks he’s nice, albeit that he looks ‘like a puppy who’s been rescued from a puddle’. Daisy takes a shine to him, but of course she lacks the daring to do anything about it – although the bold and modern ways of Reed, Martha Levinson’s American maid, may teach her otherwise. Milne thinks Alfred laps up the attention: ‘He leads Daisy on a bit – which isn’t very good. I think he probably doesn’t have a very good understanding of relationships from his parents. And then in the army he would have seen people having casual flings. He enjoys the affection that he receives in the servants’ hall. He doesn’t block Daisy and then he’s blind-sided by Reed. He discovers that there is an enjoyable life to be had at Downton.’

Alfred
Why are you being so nice to me?

Reed
Because I like you.

Alfred
And you can say it? Just like
that?

Reed
I’m an American, Alfred, and
this is 1920. Time to live a little.

Thomas, needless to say, is jealous – Alfred has taken O’Brien’s support and attention away from him. Later, as Alfred proves he means to try his best, even Carson begins to thaw. (Thomas is furious and inevitably plots trouble for the novice.) Milne explains that, for Alfred, Carson takes on even more significance: ‘From my understanding, I don’t think my mother is in service, or that she is that close to her sister. Also, I don’t think my dad’s been around much. That’s one of the reasons I come to see Carson as a sort of father figure.’ For such an unassuming young man, Alfred has caused quite a stir below stairs.

But then, footmen were employed to be noticed. The best footmen were good-looking and of a decent height (though no taller than the butler) and a pair of footmen were preferably of similar height, as it looked better when they were standing together. In their fine livery, often fitted by tailors in Savile Row, they looked quite splendid. After the First World War there was a great decline in the number of male indoor servants and only the grandest of families continued to keep them, making them more of a status symbol than ever – particularly as an annual tax was levied for each male servant. With Lord Grantham’s money worries on his mind, the hiring of a new footman wouldn’t go down well at all.

Carson would be rattled by Alfred’s lack of experience; usually a footman was appointed having risen through the servant ranks. A young boy, say around 13 or 14 years old, would start as a boots or hall boy, graduating to second footman, up to first footman and then butler. Nor does Alfred appear to have much ambition for the job; in fact, as he confides to Daisy, he’d really rather be a cook, but at that time that was a career path that was harder for a man to follow than a woman. ‘For every Escoffier or Monsieur Carême, you’ll find a thousand dogsbodies taking orders from a cross and red-faced old woman,’ he tells her (much to Mrs Patmore’s displeasure).

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.