Sometimes, filming Downton Abbey’s dining scenes, we might flick a pea, out of boredom. I shouldn’t really say that because the Carnarvons, who own Highclere Castle, might go mad. We always needed to be very careful because of the priceless paintings, but had fantasies of great food fights.
Growing up in Southampton, every Sunday involved a roast or shepherd’s pie lunch during which all the family debated politics. We’re all lefty liberals who feel much the same about everything but we’d fight over the smallest details. Me and my older and younger sisters would fight over spare crackling or Yorkshire pud. I was the one who helped Mum, an NHS radiographer, with cooking. I remember making my first macaroni cheese at age 10 and her being incredibly grateful.
I was doing lots of odd jobs after theatre school. At one point I was a teaching assistant during the day and bar staff at Sadler’s Wells during the evening. There were expensive sandwiches at Sadler’s which would be thrown away each night if unsold, so on my way home I’d give them to people sleeping rough.
I was working as a doctors’ receptionist when I got the role of Lady Edith. I found it helped to picture her as a child and decided she was the sort who wanted to sit at the big table with adults. For the first episode’s breakfast scene a lobster was brought out – ridiculously ostentatious but historically accurate.
For this last series, the director wanted to show the Crawleys going large and luxurious in a picnic situation. So for eight hours, on a really hot day, outdoors and in costume, we acted with lobster, crayfish and other stinking food, with flies everywhere. Hopefully it will look fantastic.
I wasn’t brought up with table manners, especially, so I learnt on the job from an historical advisor. The advisor was a stickler for detail, jumping in to say I was holding my fork wrong or slouching. I’m not sure it’s passed over into real life because I’m sitting here now with my legs over the arm of my chair.
We Downtoners did a charity event at the Ivy, as celebrity waiters, but I lucked out by getting the job of maître d’, whereas Julian Fellowes was racing back and forth from the kitchen all evening, carrying trays, working up a terrible sweat.
It’s been interesting to experience food from 1912 to 1925, through the window of the aristocracy. Loads of meat, lashings of cream sauces and tons of wine. It appealed to me, but not every day. I can’t imagine how anyone possibly coped.
The final series of Downton Abbey begins tonight on ITV at 9pm. It will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 16 November on Universal Pictures
