UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

On fashion magazines: "What was in them was promise.  They dealt in transformations; they suggested an endless series of possibilities, extending like the reflections in two mirrors set facing one another, stretching on, replica after replica, to the vanishing point.  They suggested one adventure after another, one wardrobe after another, one improvement after another, one man after another.  They suggested rejuvenation, pain overcome and transcended, endless love.  The real promise in them was immortality"--The Handmaid's Tale

I've subscribed to Britbox channel, for Moira as much as myself.  I've been watching reruns of Upstairs, Downstairs, the series about masters and servants in a London household that made Masterpiece Theatre almost 50 years ago.  Still love it. (I've heard that servants in those households actually didn't see much of each other, but who cares?)

My favourite character is the butler Angus Hudson (Gordon Jackson). He was always strict with the servants below him and deferential to the masters above him, but he wasn't a toady.  He really believed in the system he was part of, which is a bit sad.  He was one of those Scottish people who become more English than the regular English, like Colin Firth and the Queen Mother.

I've been watching the fourth season, the one set in the Great War when things got turned upside down.  Last night I saw the episode where Georgina volunteered for nursing and got in over her head for the first time in her life!  Also, James was moved back from the trenches to the staff after his criticism of the government's handling of the war got into the newspapers, but he wanted to be back in the front lines.  Hazel didn't want him in danger, but she ended up speaking to his colonel and getting him sent back.

There are a lot of good stories in this season, like when Hazel had an affair with a pilot who soon got killed, and she consoled Rose over the death of the latter's sweetheart as a way of dealing with her own bereavement.  Or Edward the happy-go-lucky footman joining up and suffering shell shock, and they were going to send him back anyway so he tried to desert but Hudson made him return!  I like details like Hazel receiving a telegram from James saying he'd soon return and thinking it was a cable reporting his death, or the flowers in James' convalescent room having a smell that reminded him of mustard gas.

Finally started my reading aloud of A Little Princess.  So far it's only Jacqueline and me, but great oaks from little acorns grow.