issie

Enjoyer of terrible media.

[j4undice]

Post Six: O'Brien

Resignation letters from O'Brien to Her Ladyship and Mrs Hughes.

I think the thing with these letters is people are obviously more inclined to like Cora or Mrs Hughes, and these nearly identical resignation letters are more O'Brien ephemera than anything else.

I have so many copies of both her letter to Cora and her letter to Mrs Hughes. They contain basically the same thing but some of them are mounted and some have envelopes. Another of the drafts is actually an email. Authentic to the period of course.

Long way of saying if you do happen to be interested in any of this, there's plenty of these I'll be willing to part with.

To Her Ladyship.

Two copies mounted for this one. Perfect for the complicated lesbian in your life?

Lady Flintshire poaching Cora's Lady's Maid is so unbelievably messy of her. Anyway do we think O'Brien had a nice time in India or what. I think yes.

To Mrs Hughes

Regarding hero vs unmarked. While hero denotes a detailed piece specifically for screen use, can attest that all in my possession are literally identical. Only difference is the condition of the (7) envelopes but the letters (of which I have 7 that arrived out of envelopes and two more in envelopes) are all from the same batch of copies.

I like this one best mainly because of the concept of writing and email in January of 2013 and it being printed and kept for nearly 13 years. The state of the emails I write they're lucky if they get kept longer than 13 minutes.

This does remind me of the 'betterment of the servants' lot or whatever it was. It had Daisy's exam papers and Molesley's teaching materials - a 5 lesson unit sourcing from like. the BBC website. I don't think it should have been in there at all. Really broke the immersion in the central London auction house exhibition. What am I even saying.

More importantly:

In series 1, O'Brien is adressed by name once. Her name is Sarah. In series 4?, she originally signed her resignation letter as Mildred. Mildred O'Brien <3

These are all Mildred or M O'Brien. Mildred <3

[j4undice]

Post Five: the war, assorted papers

I think based on the contents of this batch I'll reiterate the point that at some point I will be looking to sell parts of this collection. This post contains mobilization papers for Tom Branson and William Mason (and the medical exemption letter for Branson), in addition to the telegram about Matthew's injury and (as the graphic department note puts it) Robert's 'call up' letters to WW1.

Tom Branson

Mobilization papers (7 sets in total, four in envelopes)

(request for medical examination - embodiment- attestation - short service notice)

I do think the mobilization papers are a lovely example of the Downton props department taking a great deal of care with historical details and such. It's very cool to hold these envelopes and unfold the papers within. They don't tend to reveal much information as they often aren't flagged for much (if any) screentime but (and this is not a guarantee) it is always cool when envelopes have been filled with relevant papers.

It's been a few years since I studied Irish history (Anglo-Irish conflict across the 20th century) but the Attestation alone. I get the purpose of it for sure in the context of a country that still executes for cowardice (hey, they did that on the show!) but I think Branson's scuppered plan to object was not nearly extreme enough. Brutal that by living in England during conscription they could demand not only his sacrifice but a declaration of loyalty to the crown. You'll get them next time, Comrade.

Just going to link the the National Archives scan of Wilfred Owen's Attestation paper becauses it's fiddly and in terms of information to be gleaned... we know his name is T Branson, if that's anything.

In addition we are given another view at what I think is the one Reigment stamp possessed by the props department (it is literally identical in every version I have - Tom, Thomas and William, who are all ultimately told to report to Richmond for enlistment).

9th County of London, Queen Victoria('s Rifles)

Huge if true but it just literally isn't. From what I found in a very lazy search they were a territorial volunteer unit who suffered some pretty immense losses in April 1915. I maybe would've just used a good work star. Maybe a smiling cat or something.

Just going to link the the National Archives scan of Wilfred Owen's Attestation paper becauses it's fiddly.

And of the Short Service letter. 'Notice to be given to a man at the time of his offering to join the Army' is insane for a form accompanied by the statement that failure to comply with request to join is grounds for being 'proceeded against'. What offer!! Love it. (This I appreciate is a genuine product of convention of the time.) Also 'His Majesty's Army, in which you have expressed your willingness to serve'. All this to a man who his colleagues fully believe at one point to be willing, capable and perhaps even culpable of murdering an Officer. Big love to that.

(Going to content myself here by referencing the Community line about Greendale students being in the army reserve.)

Anyway I think maybe my broader point here is a little muddled. The props are often examples of attention to detail without any real details. They do a good job of looking the part but generally looking closer doesn't reveal any rewards. Onwards!

The letter from the medical officer

I don't really have any input here. Mitral valve prolapse, pansystolic murmur.

Not suitable for medical service did make me a little confused for what he was being recruited for (wouldn't rule out props dept. confusing Tom B/Thomas B) but maybe that's just a little error. They do specifically say military service immediately after but I suppose it's all military in war isn't it. Such a shame he never got to be arrested for objecting.

William Mason

Not transcribing these ones because are they or are they not identical to Thomas and Tom's. They even have the same stamp!

Attestation - recruitment notice - Embodiment

I think definitely the best thing about the mobilization papers for me is getting specific dates. William's letter is dated April 8th 1917 with a medical examination on Wednesday 18th April. It's signed Major General Burton which is consistent with S1E7 when Thomas is asking Clarkson about enlistment.

We're told William is wanted for the Richmond Division (which makes sense, they just don't have a stamp for it or anything similar despite the presence of at least one (very nice from what I remember) army museum in the area). They're all wanted for Richmond. It's the nearest 'proper' place to Downton. It's such a shame they only make London unit stamps.

Matthew

Slightly different handwritten variations of the telegram for Mrs Crawley about Matthew's injury and transfer to the Cottage Hospital. One is mounted for display and the other is folded into an envelope for the scene. 20 July 1918

I also have a (the?) casualty label for Matthew's bed reading 'probable Spinal Damage'. This came taped to the back of the framed telegram so if I sell this I'd probably be keeping it together. As in the Stationery post I do have many blank tags.

Robert

Another lazy search, this time through the Hansard archive of the HoC and the HoL didn't yield anything in specific on mobilisation plans. Did encounter a HoC discussion on the actual reduction in pay for Irish Constabulary owing to the increased cost of living during the war but Grantham is a HoL man through and through. Honestly I had such little luck finding transcripts of debates that I'm half ready to accept the response to the Easter Rising as the plan Grantham supported. That's unkind of me. His canon politics are a bit of an engima to me. Soft c conservative and yet also. Tory. but gently woke (by Edwardian-interwar standards)

Nice mention of Butcher Haig (Grantham would be flattered by this, but indeed I think he shouldn't be).

[j4undice]

Post Four: The Thomas Edit

A fourth haul of my auction winnings. This one contains the last of any Thomas specific/tangential pieces that weren't included in my first post of favourites. I present the enlistment papers, a field service postcard to O'Brien (keep hopes low), Edward Courtenay's final letter from his father and the letter Thomas receives from the Stiles before he takes his S6 position.

Firstly, Thomas' war papers. This is another example of lots arriving sort of pre-mounted for display. But I have no space to display it so it remains in its special shipping bag.

The full board.

Blue - Attestation, papers filled out on enlistment. Seems to be agreement to the literal terms of service, eligibility to serve as a new recruit and an oath of loyalty to the Crown.

Yellow - letter detailing which Division and recruitment office he is to report to. Dated before the declaration of war by two days. So I guess that tells us how long post of this type took in 1914 because Thomas receives this information the same day war is announced at the garden party. I think.

Brown - Embodiment, notice to join. This has the same date as the yellow letter but is the official stock notice and gives the date and timeline for Thomas to begin the active enlistment process into the army. Absolutely insane that he got his foot in the door just before war was declared. That's so him.

Green - Envelope, army issue. More of this kind in my next post (war stuff). Adressed to Thomas via Clarkson who is already listed as Captain. Before Thomas' enlistment for sure as he has no rank on the envelope but I don't really remember what the deal is with that.

The blue attestation page in particular I wish had been filled in more fully, if only so we might have got a middle name for him.

Postcard to O'Brien

I confess I haven't even included a photo of the back of it because it's an unfilled template. If you're curious check my post on my collection of official blank stationery as used on the Downton Abbey set.

It's nice that he at some point sent one to O'Brien I guess. Didn't fill it in but I am choosing to believe he was sending the postcard blank but signed as proof of life before some kind of advancement as that's the sort of protocol. I think the date stamp is 8 April 1917. I don't know if that's a date that really makes sense in the canon but most of the finer details in these papers are actually meaningless anyway.

My understanding (from the notes I put in the previous stationery post) is that the officer's signature at the bottom refers to who passed it through the censors. In this case Lt Crawley, which I guess scans with the fact that Thomas and Matthew come across one another in the trenches. I love my show with its rigid set of characters.

Edward Courtenay's letter

Not technically Thomas I suppose but it's not getting its own entry. I have 10 copies of this on slightly different papers.

Horrible little letter. Understandable response from Edward tbh. I think this would successfully push me over the brink in his situation. I suppose its a very paternalistic letter from what would be a firmly Victorian man and in many respects could be worse. The emphasis on Edward's loss of agency and the idea of other people taking charge of his future is foul. It almost softens with the 'you have been brave but now you must be strong' and then it immediately hits us with 'you can never fulfill the dreams we had'. Imagine someone reading this to you. Dreadful.

I do think with pretty much all the war papers it becomes pretty clear that there was really one person running the handwriting department as most of it looks pretty similar across all sorts of items.

If I must connect it explicity with Thomas I'll say this. Edward Courtenay is my favourite Thomas ship by a substantial distance. I have read basically all others and I don't mind them but if I could choose it would be him all the way. This letter is the most evil document in the series and there's multiple blackmail plots in this dreary little show. Anyway. Forget the war. Here's Series 6.

The Stiles Letter

I would suggest this literally tells us nothing. Very dry letter. It's not even dated. Tadmarton is a real place about an hour away from Highclere but I don't imagine it's anything more than grounding the Downton Abbey universe with reality. Like Crowborough. And Buckingham Palace.

As far as any further Thomas lots. The best ones are in my first post. And there might be a couple more in the depths of my inventory but I think it's a dubious invoice that might be adressed to Barrow but it's very far down my list for posting at the moment.

letters transcribed in alt text.

[j4undice]

Post Three: Stationery

This I think might be the actually least interesting account of the auction lots. Steel yourself for a description of blank pages.

Trench postcards, war casualty labels, 'trench memo paper' and (unrelated) stationery from Grantham House.

Probably going to post a slightly more interesting one over the weekend.

One thing with inventory-ing the lots is that the count of items easily quarters itself when you disregard the amount of blank or template bits of paper. The marriage ledgers and certificates, of course, in the event of needing multiple takes of signing them, should they be visible. Similar goes for some letters in various states - letters with and without envelopes, sometimes opened cleanly, sometimes ripped open.

What I'm saying is I have a decent chunk of blank or near-blank paper. 34 sheets of gridded 'trench memo' paper. Unsullied. There was also a bag of folded trench memos, allegedly all to Matthew as Captain Crawley but its curly cursive in faint pencil and none of it means anything to me. I don't think it's meant to.

Field Service Post Cards (37) and Envelopes (21)

Nothing particularly special about these. I think they were at best set dressing or possibly behind the scenes spares for the few that were used in scenes. I haven't watched S2 in a while but there's certainly an answer out there.

I have posted above the note included in the whole postcard-y lot but the postcard to O'Brien that's hinted is not included in blank stationery even though it might as well be. If nothing else I will tell you that it confirms a Lt Crawley was the officer checking Thomas' post. Easy job if you can believe it.

Casualty Labels

There are 11 of these. They're from the S2 hospital/convalescent home sequences. I do also have one for Matthew 'probable spinal damage' (as written on the note above) but I've included that in a slightly more interesting War lot. Coming soon!

Trench Memo paper

34 sheets of gridded paper. There are numbers in the corners but they're not sequential. I think they do correspond to the messages written on them for scenes as in my bag of assorted trench notes there seem to just be two variations divided between two numbers.

(below) The notes. I do like the way they look when folded up but somehow I have not included a photo of it in the set.

As I say there are two variations which aren't as bad to read as I thought when there were maybe two dozen different ones. Related to Matthew I think. Arrived in an unlabelled plastic wallet.

And finally,

Grantham House daily card

I think this is for keeping track of visits and such during the London Season. I have 6 of them, whatever they're used for.

[j4undice]

Post Two: The Magazines

From the 'Downstairs' lot - Daisy's magazine cutting from DA2 featuring an article on Guy Dexter and a copy of The London Magazine - open to the CYOP advertisement from series 5.

A warning that this is sort of text/picture heavy because I am a champion rambler. Have once again partially transcribed some of the images.

Presenting first Daisy's magazine clipping.

I'll call this Photoplay even though there's no actual proof of that (in the movie Anna holds up a copy of Picturegoer with Myrna Dalgleish across the cover, Daisy produces her own folded paper containing a piece on Guy Dexter, containing actual photos of Dominic West).

There are four total spreads, all different mockups more similar to each other than the final edition seen on screen. I've photgraphed the clearest print of the spread choice as this is the most complete one - the others are generally different arrangements of the photos with different print qualities and lorem ipsum text (this one contains approximately half an article).

Old Hollywood is a thing I am interested in but not knowledgeable about. I am supposing what actual text exists for the article is probably not wholly original but to what end I don't know.

In terms of revealed 'information' the full page photo (the one Daisy shows in the film?) suggests that The Gambler is actually the second talking film Guy Dexter has been in, the first of which, Casanova, launched his stardom. This is then contradicted in the article where it is said if you are awaiting the rise of the "Talkie", this isn't for you. That's not so interesting. I'm more interested in the idea that Guy Dexter in Casanova had a 'wonderful visual style, with one long scene filmed in colour.' (I'm imagining almost Wizard of Oz style to that end. But the opposite and actually completely different.)

My theory is that these photos used as placeholders are at least vintage, but I can't positively ID any of them. Perhaps they're nothing at all. Certainly they disappeared once they had fulfilled their role in pre-production prototyping. Do sort of wish this lot had come with the Myrna magazine, especially if they did follow through on creating a whole magazine.

Presenting second The London Magazine

As far as The London Magazine goes, I'll first say it is sort of strapped (mounted?) to a board (a lot of these lots are in some capacity - sort of half-ready for display if only I had space on my walls) and the nature of this makes it a little precarious to flip through the pages because (and this is where the provenance and condition of the thing seems more unusual) the whole thing seemingly includes genuine pages taken from different publications and stapled together.

There is some discoloured tape, there are completely random page numbers - too big to be from a magzine at all really, unless it was massively dense. The cover in particular is fragile and does have the old paper smell - but no matter what it's decade old paper stored who knows how so that might not mean anything.

I think really it is a combination of photocopies of genuine pages from various issues and then supplemented by mockups made in house by the Downton Abbey prop team. The mockups span a range of interests and some fill text space with Lorem ipsum and others with the opening of Pride and Prejudice. There is a picture one one page of Mussolini's march on Rome in 1922 and on another one of Marie Curie at the White House in 1921. Kind of cool as filler.

With regards to the content of it, of course it is open to the page containing the Choose Your Own Path advert, and on the opposite page is the opening for Pride and Prejudice (It is a truth universally acknowledged... etc etc). Other selected articles include a piece on Adele and Fred Astaire and an interview of sorts by 'Margot' (Asquith, archives would suggest) entitled 'Concerning Clothes' which is a fun sort of take about women dressing for themselves.

The history of the real life publication includes in its past reference to being The Gentleman's Intelligencer (and in the relevant iteration, shares origins with the Daily Mail). The point I am making is this is not specifically a women's magazine. It may indeed be treated as a sort of unisex communal offering. And yet. This is possibly the gayest thing he could have been reading.

(see Below) This isn't the whole article because it is long and truthfully rather dry. But one of the (genuine) articles they put in is this one about Egyptology, inspired by the imminent opening of Tutankhamun's tomb. I like this as a detail because obviously there's the connection to the real life history of Highclere Castle's family. In canon I suppose the purchase of this well-distributed literary journal is related in part to Lord Grantham's own interest in Egyptology. You know what I'm saying.

Really it invites questions because how can an article mention the late Earl of Carnarvon (who lived at Highclere Castle) when Highclere Castle is Downton Abbey. If you're funding an archaeological grave robbing and dying of a mosquito bite and I'm losing all my money to bad investments and heirship struggles then WHO is crashing this car.

And finally, other and surplus articles. As stated my general feeling is that there are photocopies of real articles and the clearer prints are filler made specially for the prop.

[j4undice]

Post One: Downton Auction Favourites

Not a huge user of Tumblr! Glad to talk about any of this! Desperate even!

Was lucky enough to secure three lots (23, 27, 120) in the Bonhams auction (I don't even want to think about the money. I've been going through it and suspect I will live to regret the purchase). Having now had them in possession for about two months and spent some time making a full inventory I thought I'd start sharing some of that haul, starting with what most interests me.

Also the lot with Daisy's outfits was technically up again because the winner defaulted on it and as second bidder I got first refusal! I did say no because I really cannot justify it but I dream of owning her season 1 pink dress. It's so cute.

Firstly, The Glove!

I know they had many gloves made over the course of the series due to wear, I don't necessarily know that this one specifically was worn in production but I'll choose to believe it was. It's very soft and I assume this is just what leather smells of but upon taking it out when it arrived it really just smells like my grandparent's attic used to. Odd! The glove arrived wrapped in an amount of khaki fabric that came in the WW1 box with a selection of leather and fabric patches and they all smell the same so I don't know exactly what it is about it causing the smell. Not unpleasant! Just quite strong.

Was obviously also wrapped in tissue paper and put in a sandwich bag. This is, I believe, standard practice for things that cost a truthfully silly amount of money. In terms of future storage/display I'm considering getting some kind of hand cast made perhaps? but I'm also likely to just get it a nice box or something to protect it from dust and such.

With that in mind here's a picture of some of the patches.

The patch that's sort bottom left is the Crawley crest because it is used in some production documents from A New Era (earlier production notes from my new collection use the silhouette of the house). Also includes patches for Grantham and Sinderby (this IS the WW1 lot but I'll be honest I have issues with the categorisation and provenance of some things from the auction so). There are also some patches with apparently random initials - I'm assuming surplus from costuming nameless characters but military history is not something I am generally concerned with the details of so maybe it's something else entirely.

I can talk at length about pretty much anything I got even though a lot of it is essentially set dressing and cannot be taken for fact (see Daisy and William's entry in the marriage ledger making William 13 in season 1, or 17 when he was conscripted). Another fun Daisy and William related prop flub is this love later to Daisy, as signed by (say it with me) Thomas!

(Letter transcribed in alt text of the first picture of it)

There's three lovely pictures of Daisy that came in a bag labelled 'general photos of Anna and Daisy' (but I know the Anna photos went into a sort of Bates ephemera lot so this is just a clue that the lotting of all this precious junk was quite a convoluted process).

Those are sort of the immediate big hitters for me. In terms of what I know I'm going to post there's a couple of magazines and various letters (in droves and concerning many different characters), lots of blank stationery and prop papers. For sure anything even tangentially Thomas related. There are also things concerning Mrs Patmore's nephew and the war memorial service, Matthew's injury, O'Brien's resignation, Carson's property enquiries, the Trial of Peter Coyle, servant's references, Mrs Bird's letter to Molesley about the Ethel of it all.. All sorts of stuff. And some more that I have not inventoried properly because it's just fake invoices for things. Definitely just padding for Carson's desk or the like.

Also I can't actually read all of the letters so that's a nice touch. Mainly it's the handwriting.

I think I'm going to share my inventory at some point but until then the lot listings are still available to view on the Bonhams website if you have any requests to see specific things.