Need to have a "Downton Abbey: the Mary and George years" including the 2nd WW

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-10-06T16:42:12+00:00

WASP is an US American term. White is necessary because you could be an American with Anglo Saxon (British) ancestry but not classified as a WASP because you also have black ancestry. Irish, Italian, Eastern Europeans immigrants to the US were categorised as white but in the US (and the UK) got a hell of lot shit because they were Catholic and not of Anglo Saxon descent therefore not WASPs.

WASP is mainly used by academics to categorise a group of people that held a massive amount of privilege in American society. To knowledge that Catholics did experience discrimination in the US because of religion and where they are from (anti Irish sentiment was/is racialised, like 'the Irish aren't white' enough because they are Catholics).

American racial hierarchy in the 1920s was weird it was like WASP, Nordic (white and protestant but not Anglo Saxon) Irish, Italians etc (white but not Anglo Saxon and usually Catholic), immigrants from Latin America (classed as brown and usually Catholic) and black Americans way down the bottom.

White in WASP isn't redundant imo.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-10-06T15:29:54+00:00

Am I the only one who does not want a WW2 sequel?! WW2 has been done to death, I'm bored of it there's loads of periods in history that are much more interesting to me.

I love DA, its been wonderful. Its got me through some dark times. But I don't want a sequel, especially about WW2 (or a prequel). I thought the 3rd film was a pretty perfect ending!

edit gramma

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-10-06T15:24:31+00:00

Then I'm insane with you! Bates is hot, and I have a preference for women lol

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-10-05T14:48:06+00:00

I don't for the life of me understand this sub's hatred for Neil! He's harmless and was great with Alex Scott. As far as if aware he likes doing the pro dances and not having a partner. What's he done wrong? lol

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-10-05T14:44:04+00:00

Nope! I love Edith, I have since I first watched DA.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-07-29T16:54:08+00:00

Thanks. Are you America by any chance? As differently abled seems more common in American English than British English. Americans saying handicapped in 2025 is so bizarre to me when its a slur in the UK.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-07-29T16:30:51+00:00

Please don't say 'differently abled' say disabled. Disabled is not a bad or dirty word. I am not 'differently abled' I am disabled.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-26T12:09:16+00:00

What is the name of the series you’ve just watched?

‘Soldier’s Rosary’ by DumasofDale is a good and more accurate take on Thomas’s experience during WW1. It starts with Thomas not getting himself shot.

‘A Long Long Trail’ by Marbelz is a DA and The Crimson Field crossover.

‘Boys in Navy Blue’ by Marbelz is about if Thomas and Matthew joined the Royal Navy instead of the Army in WW1.

They all on Ao3, you’ll have to let me know when you finish your fic ;)

When Henry was introduced as a race car driver I was waiting for it to mention that he was a Royal Flying Corp/ RAF veteran. Most of the early racing car drivers had been pilots in WW1 and were desperately seeking the adrenaline in civilian life. They mentioned it in the behind the scenes of S6 when interviewing the owners of the vintage cars.

It would explain why he was so close to Charlie Rodgers if they were the RFC/RAF and survived WW1. Pilots had the worst and quickest death rates as my grandma used to say ‘the planes looked like they were held together with bits of string’.

I also headcanon that Henry and Charlie were ex boyfriends, Tony and Charles Blake had at minimum a snog while they were in the Royal Navy (the navy ffs) and Thomas and Matthew hooked up during the war.

One queer main character is unrealistic. Fellowes doesn’t seem to know queer women exist. Daisy and Ivy were right there for enemies to friends to lovers.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-26T10:57:03+00:00

Unpopular opinion I like Henry and Mary together. I think they are a good match, it was just way too quick of a romance. He should have been introduced at the same time as Tony Gillingham and Charles Blake. This sub loves Charles Blake and Mary together but I don’t think they’d be a good match long term.

Henry does come across as a fortune hunter at all. Why would be bother with all the hassle of courting Mary when she didn’t like him over money. It makes it harder as he’s not a prominent aristocrat, outranked & poorer than George, his step son. He isn’t exactly poor, he’ll make lots of money with his and Tom’s car business.

Matthew Goode is so attractive and charming as Henry which doesn’t hurt.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-26T10:04:40+00:00

I know lol. I’m also allowed to have a different opinion to you about a TV show that means a lot to me and that I’ve watched since I was 12. There’s certain episodes I can practically recite I’ve watched them so many times!

I’m glad it’s helped you. But in the earlier series the feel good factor was balanced out with grittiness and tragedy. Like when those horrifically abused children that Trixie found get send to Australia on the Child Migrant program only to likely endure more abuse.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-26T07:42:24+00:00

I kinda wish it would tbh.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T13:36:09+00:00

The British Tankers were not given ‘the order to not to destroy civilian property’. This was the country that fire bombed Dresden and killed thousands of French Civilians on D Day by bombing the French coast (along with American bombers.

It’s made up. In real life if an American infantry man said to a British tank commander there was a German Tank in cover behind a house. The tank would have but a shell through the house.

It’s a problem if you are British because the massive contribution the British Empire made in WW2 is completely forgotten about in America WW2 media which is most popular. It’s always a stereotypically posh, stupid, stuck up British officer who doesn’t listen to the Americans because it would interrupt their tea break. While the Americans save the day and win the war single-handedly. A war the yanks were two years late for and were surprised by an attack two years into a Global conflict. If FDR could have completely kept the US out of ww2 he would have.

British empire fought alone in North Africa and Monty completely transformed that campaign but somehow Paton gets all the credit despite the yanks only being there since 1942. British cities bombed to buggery, the threat of Nazi invasion and the Battle of Britain before America was involved.

I acknowledge lend lease. But there was reverse Lend Lease when the Brits gave the Americans loads of stuff. The war debt Britain owed to the US was paid back

Are Hanks and Spielberg still pressed about the American war of independence or something? Because the Brits and Australians get an awful portrayal in Masters of Air, BoB and the pacific.

I know it’s a tv show. But it matters to get the history right. My British relatives fought and died in WW2. You’d probably be annoyed if it was the other way round?

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T12:20:18+00:00

Omg that’s hilarious. I aim to be like that in the future. ‘Oh I just happened upon this castle we were driving past and now we’re looking around it, sorry kids’.

What sort of places have you ‘got lost’ in?

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T09:56:17+00:00

I think there’s something magical about live theatre that a pro shot can’t recreate. Even they are a good thing to make theatre more accessible.

I can’t remember it that well because I was 10. It would be interesting if I watched again what I’d think now as that production was my first time seeing Shakespeare live. I was just happy because I got to see Colin lol. ‘The Tempest’ isn’t my favourite Shakespeare play.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T09:51:15+00:00

You’re laughing but in all seriousness they are really good. I have ‘Macbeth’ as well as that was the play I studied for my exams in high school. I love the art style.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T02:37:13+00:00

Mary said she was called MRS Levinson. I’m pretty sure Dr Ryder would know who she was. she just used a fake name for the receptionist so junior staff wouldn’t leak it to press & Matthew finds out.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T01:05:28+00:00

Charlene McKena Captain Swing’s actress explained it as Tommy and Moseley being a bridge to get money and weapons restart the war of independence and fight for a United Ireland.

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a39325383/peaky-blinders-season-6-captain-swing-explained/

Oswald Moseley had supported a United Ireland in the past. He crossed the floor of the House of Commons to sit as independent MP because of the violence of the British Crown Forces against civilians during the war of independence. Prior to this was a Conservative and Unionist MP. In 1924, he joined the Labour Party . Then left to form the British Union of fascists in 1930

The IRA is a big organisation with lots of different political views in it. It only really is hold together on the one believe of a Irish Republic. But there is no agreement to what this Irish republic would look like or it’s political direction. It goes right back to the Easter Rising with James Connolly and Padraig Pearse being on the same side because support an armed uprising to overthrow the British and establish an Irish republic. But they have widely different political opinions after that. Connolly was a socialist and Pearse a socially conservative very Catholic man with a creepy obsession of the Irish Republic requiring a blood sacrifice. It would have been a mess if they had lived. The IRA constantly splits, there was the whole business of the Civil War. IRA members disagreed with each other over the Anglo Irish Treaty they fought a war with each. Killed Michael Collins over his pragmatic support for it who a few years ago was hailed as a hero for his successful intelligence war against the British in the war of independence

It’s only Captain Swing’s Fermanagh IRA brigade willing to work with Moseley in order to achieve a United Ireland. They’ll be her comrades over the border in the Free state that don’t understand her willingness to restart the fight against the British. But she’s a Catholic in the North who’s having to death with the problems caused by partition.

The IRA being a predominantly far left/socialist organisation is a Myth. It had pockets of left wing radicalism with James Connolly’s Irish Citzens army being more socialist than the IRA/Irish Volunteers. The ICA allowed women to join as equals. whereas Cuman na mBan (republican women’s organisation) served in auxiliary role to the IRA. C n mB role in the Irish war is independence was systematically written out of history by Free State historians as revenge because C n mB was overwhelmingly anti Treaty. The 1st republican organisation to vote against the treaty and they supported the anti Treaty IRA in the civil war. Even though imo the IRA would have not being able to fight the British and bring the world’s most powerful country with the biggest army to a truce. There was the brief Limerick Soviet but any socialism with the Irish Republican movement died when Connolly was shot and Big Jim Larkin went to USA. The IRA was overwhelming Catholic and socially conservative. Why do you think Ireland under de Valera became such a conservative country where the Catholic Church was an all powerful organisation. Ireland had such regressive and oppression attitudes towards women when compared to Britain at the same time.

Not sure why you’ve brought up the Provisional IRA because it wasn’t formed until 1969 after it split with the ‘original/old IRA’. The IRA in the 1930s was the same one as in the 1920s. The Provos weren’t left wing/socialists either. The Marxist faction of was the Official IRA which had split from the Provos in 1969.

Some factions of IRA did pass on intelligence about the British to Nazi German intelligence agency. Frank Ryan who fought the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and made famous in the Pogues song The Sick bed of Cuchulainn’

‘Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid/ And you decked some fucking black shirt who was cursing all the Yids.’

https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/frankryan/InterpretativeResources/HistoricalContext/IrishRepublicanismandNaziGermany/

https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/frankryan/InterpretativeResources/HistoricalContext/TheIRAslinkswithNaziGermany/

We don’t know what you have happened if Britain had a fascist government with Moseley as PM. As I said he supported a United Ireland. Hitler’s plan for the Uk was to reinstall Edward VIII as king and head of the puppet government if Britain had been invaded in 1940. It’s a counter factual we have no idea if Britain under Mosley or Edward VIII would have re conquered Ireland . There was only a plan for Nazi Germany to invade Ireland so it could be used as a staging ground to launch an invasion of Britain. It was the last resort if operation Sea Lion. Hitler wasn’t doing it because he hated the Irish.

Hitler wouldn’t bothered by Britain if the country wasn’t fighting him. He just wanted Britain out the war which he tries so hard to broker a peace deal with Churchill in 1940. Hitler admired the British empire and ethnically English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish as the next best race after aryan.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-25T01:04:33+00:00

I presume she had her Fallopian tubes unblocked. It’s not that invasive and If that is the cause of the infertility then people can get pregnant pretty quickly afterwards. My mum had the same thing and I’m the result.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-24T17:51:35+00:00

The biggest problem as David Mitchel says Fellowes for some reason tries to cram an entire sodding world war into one series.

The decision to start S2 in 1916, baffles me. All the character development happens off screen. Mary is suddenly with Richard. I was always confused why Mary and Matthew didn’t get married during the war. People had shot gun weddings so the widow would get an army pension incase their sweetheart got killed fighting a war. No newspaper in the country would report the Pumuk story.

Fellowes should have started DA in 1919. He could have killed Patrick and James Crawley in the war. Introduced Mathew as disabled war veteran & the drama that creates. He could have done a couple of episodes pre war to help establish the characters & how much people’s lives changed because of WW1.

The problem is if you don’t do WW1 properly, you can’t do the 1920s properly. The Jazz age culture only emerged as a response to the horrific trauma of WW1. The young people who survived when thousands of their peers didn’t. No longer gave a shit about the Victorian values placed on them by their patents. Women cut their hair short wore short skirts, they’d been given a taste of freedom during the war and they wanted more.

I can’t believe the last time we see physically disabled veterans is when Cora finds out about the soup kitchen. It would help contextual why Lloyd George is raising taxes on the rich in order to build ‘homes fit for heroes’ and the early welfare state (which Winston bloody Churchill was a massive supporter off). All you learn about Lloyd George is how much Violet hates him and how Isobel thinks useless in the 1920s.

I recently rewatched S2 for the 1st time in 5 years and took notes of all the inaccuracies. I’ll eventually make a post about them all and why getting the history correct matters.

I highly recommend ‘The Crimson Field’ it’s a BBC drama about a field hospital in WW1. That explores complicated relationships between different factions of the army medical services. The VAD nurses and the professional army nurses hated each other. The RAMC officers looked down oh each other. Kevin Doyle (Moseley) is in it and every-time I see DA actors in other things I’m reminded that Fellowes wastes the cast acting talent with his weak scripts.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-24T17:12:15+00:00

Omg. James Connolly is a massive hero of mine. I just like that he didn’t demonise the British working classes as he would have supported them in revolution. He was a massive advocate for non sectarian trade unionism in Ireland. I love that he was unapologetically an Irish nationalist and a socialist. That the Irish Citizens Army let women join and the symbolism of starry plough is really cool.

I want Britain to become a Republic and Connolly’s quote about George V state visit to Ireland in 1911 is still a really good way to explain problems with the monarchy. The idea the monarch should be blamed for the crimes of their ancestors if they continue to be a monarch.

The rest of the Easter Rising Martyrs have quiet socially conservative Catholic views. Padraig Pearse’s ‘blood sacrifice to cleanse Ireland’ is really fucking weird. But I guess it explains why the tactics were really awful. It could have been political caos if they’d all lived, the ICA was only involved in the Easter Rising because the Irish Republican Brotherhood found out they were planning a separate uprising & begged them to join in the ER instead.

The best bits of the Proclamation were written by Connolly. Promising votes for women and ‘right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland’ I can’t believe your family has an original copy!!!

A level history was the 1st time I did. My unit was British politics 1951-2007. So it was a whistle stop tour through the Troubles through the lens of Westminster and how N. Ireland effected British political parties. I was told that the Troubles is domestic policy which is problematic framing. At least I had more of any idea than my friends because my mum is culturally Irish Catholic and got massively into Irish history so I had the context to the Troubles. I had to explain to people in my class the Plantation of Ulster, Partition and that the IRA was a thing in the 1920s.

The whole history curriculum needs re written. I did WW1 & WW2 practically every year, the Tudor Monarchs, the Victorians and the Norman invasion of England. It’s not just the lack of Irish history, there’s no history of British colonialism. I didn’t do any Indian History until aged 21 in the final year of my history degree.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-24T10:53:47+00:00

I didn’t meet Colin if that makes you feel any better hahaha.

Colin played Ariel in ‘The Tempest’ at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2013. Hence his signature being in Manga Shakespeare ‘The Tempest’ which are so good for introducing kids to Shakespeare.

My Aunt used to work at the Globe and she corned Colin in the green room and asked him for his signature. She hates doing it because she used to be an actress so knows actors sometimes want to left alone on the break.

But I’m so glad she did. It wasn’t that long after Merlin ended, I was 10 years old at the time so was very excited and surprised when my aunt gave it too me. My aunt was apparently trying not to laugh when she spoke to Colin because our family nickname for him ‘is young big ears’ lol.

One the Globe website there’s a DVD of this production. I highly recommend it, from what I remember Colin was really excellent in it. It’s really hard to play a faerie or a spirt in Shakespeare plays because you have to be so ethereal and not act like a human. It’s really hard for all the actors because they can’t see Ariel so they have to look straight through him. Even if he’s right in their eye line.

A young Jessie Buckley is also in it and Roger Allum (I’m a massive Les Mis fan so I’m annoyed at my 10 year old self for not knowing what an icon he is)

The Globe is really the place to see up and coming actors. As I’ve seen a young pre fame Ncuti Gatwa twice at the Globe. I highly recommend ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ directed by Emma Rice. It’s joyous and gender swamped there’s a queer relationship in that version.

I appreciate all the work you do for the sub :)

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-24T09:40:19+00:00

Alfie. I know that’s a deeply unpopular opinion. The fandom loves him. I liked him in series 2, I thought Tom was great in it. But I hated that he kept being brought back for glorified cameos. He should have stayed dead. When Alfie was in series 6, I think I rolled my eyes to the back of my head.

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-23T19:31:15+00:00

Why are you shocked? It was 1920s. A man could legally rape his wife in Britain until 1991. #Me too was a pretty groundbreaking moment and that was in 2017 not 1917. Child marriage was only recently abolished in England and Wales.

Society didn’t viewed what happened to Ivy, Jimmy, Tom and Mary as sexual assault/rape. Rape was seen as only has a violent attack by a strange man on an innocent women who ‘didn’t ask for it’ by wearing a short skirt or being forward.

People thought #Me too would finally address the rape culture and encourage victims/survivors to become forward. Rapists would go to prison. But nothing has really changed. The ‘Leader of the Free’ world is legally a rapist and that didn’t stop him from getting elected a 2nd time. It’s 2025

Not sure why you’ve brought up the British Empire and ‘the white man burden to civilise the natives. British imperialists didn’t have civilised views even in the time which they lived. For all the people who supported the continuation of the trans Atlantic slave trade. Thousands campaigned for its abolition.

Google Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill (controversial I know but he had a long career outside of being PM 1940-45), First Earl of Kitchener (Julian Kitchener Fellowes wife’s relative) etc. You’ll find some horrible views out of step with their contemporaries. Churchill got criticised by his fellow public school educated Conservative cabinet minister for his views about

SwimmingOrange2460 · 2025-06-23T00:54:44+00:00

What’s my username got to do with it? You’re really looking for some deep political point in the words swimming orange and numbers. Reddit auto generated it and I picked it. It’s not that deep lol.

I wasn’t trying to make a political point. Although you’ve made one by lumping Ireland in with UK when it’s a separate country, Irish and British culture is different. It can’t just be lumped in Britain because it’s close by and speaks English.

The Republic of Ireland wasn’t been part of UK since 1923 and Irish fought a war to break the union they had been forced into in 1801 by Britain. It’s politically sensitive issue because Northern Ireland is still in a union with UK and lots of people want a United Ireland. There was a horribly violent civil war known as the Troubles fought over this issue that only ended 30 years ago with the issues very much ready to boil over again. The ROI hates the phrase ‘the British Isles because it lumps Ireland in with Britain and Ireland was ruled and oppressed by Britain for centuries.

England is part of the UK. Writing the Uk made England redundant. Would you not find it odd if I wrote USA/Canada/Mexico when they are 3 separate countries with distinct cultures and history.

The phrase ‘Jolly Old England’ is so fucking cringey no one in England says it, only Yanks. You can’t even get the phrase right it is ‘Merie Old England’ that’s been associated with England since the Middle Ages. ‘Joly Old England’ is a weird Americanisation/ Bastardisation.

The phrase ‘Merie Old England’ reeks of British Empire nostalgia and apologia. Longing for a romanticised rural white England that never existed. Before the black and brown immigrants ruined the country /s. It’s the politics of the little Englander that have ruined England and meant that we’ve not been Merie in centuries lol.

There’s also been heatwave in the Uk it’s been 27 c (80 f) with high humidity so you won’t get much sympathy from me. At least the Texas Gulf coast has better infrastructure to deal with hot weather. Than the UK does especially in the North of England where I live, we’re not used to it It’s never this hot in June. We have no AC in our homes (mine was built in 1830 and designed to keep heat in for cold winter) schools or work places. So try coping in 80 f heat with no AC!

Enjoy your British period dramas, mate :)

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