Changing Times

At various moments in Downton Abbey both upstairs and downstairs had to come to grips with change. The Dowager Lady Grantham had to cope with electric lights, Mrs Patmore with an electric whisk whilst Mr Carson was extremely dubious about a new-fangled apparatus called a telephone.

Part of our enjoyment of the characters was how they reacted to such novelties. Whilst Mrs Patmore was rather suspicious of the new modern cooking equipment, Daisy embraced it. There was no choice when Lady Grantham decided to have a refrigerator installed in the kitchen but Miss Baxter took to a sewing machine with aplomb. Upstairs Sibyl led the way with changing fashions despite rather memorably being likened to a lampshade at one point. As usual Julian Fellowes in plot and character brought it all skilfully to life.

However, whether on screen or in real life, there are often silver linings to change in terms of new opportunities or, in today’s parlance, the addition of new skill sets. It can open doors and be really quite exciting.

300 years ago, a man who became known as Capability Brown travelled around England promoting his particular skills, his ‘capability’ for reading the land’s potential and landscaping it into a new and more harmonious aspect for his wealthy landowning clients. Without doubt he met with resistance from some: his ideas would have been considered a radically new approach from the traditional and infinitely more formal styles of gardens and he often had to encourage his clients and audience to reframe their thoughts. Luckily, for all his grand plans, works on such a large scale take time to mature allowing people to get used to and appreciate his vistas and walks.

The 5^th Earl of Carnarvon who lived at Highclere for much of the fictional Downton era was particularly good at embracing change. Thrilled by all the developing technologies of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras, he was at the forefront of the new horsepower revolution – cars. Horses had been our mainstay for millennia and suddenly in the space of a decade or two were no longer needed. It also became possible to fly through thin air: it must have seemed almost magical.

Such change in modes of transport gave access both to new resources and the furthest corners of the world which in turn speeded up the whole process of change. These days, time almost seems to have collapsed inwards on itself as technology develops with an almost reckless speed. The advent of AI and its adoption across the board is a particular example and for many companies a bit of a leap in the dark. I can’t help feeling sometimes that such leaps are usually best made if the landing has been fully observed beforehand, preferably in daylight.

Change is inevitable, whether good or bad, but I also believe that there are values and standards which should not change by which we can set priorities, assess and make judgements.