Dowager Lady Grantham's Special Message for Roads to the Great War Readers

Our oldest and best-known recurring publication at Worldwar1.com is our free monthly newsletter the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire. Every month we provide a portal to a vast amount of information on the Great War. Our February issue features our usual  collection of articles, links, imagery, and the special message below:

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A Message from Violet  Dowager Countess of Grantham The Official Favorite Downton Abbey Character of Worldwar1.com Dear Roads to the Great War Readers,  No doubt you will regard this as rather unorthodox, my pushing my way into an electronic publication. First electricity, then telephones, now the Internet. Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in an H.G. Wells novel. But life is a game, where sometimes the player must appear ridiculous. While there can be too much truth in any relationship there is a time for forthrightness. I must say that I find this fascination in our former colonies with my family's story a bit puzzling, and — forgive me for saying this — utterly middle class. Especially so, since before Downton Abbey there was Abingdon Pryory and the Greville Family Saga, which I'm amused to say were brilliantly chronicled by that American from Hollywood, California, the late Mr. Philip Rock. (Why does every day involve the intrusion of an American?) If you would like to discover the source from which Downton Abbey's producers borrow their plot and some of my dialogue, you might consider reading this wonderful trilogy that was reissued recently.  By the way, the first volume of the Abingdon Pryory Trilogy — The Passing Bells — covers the Great War, the second the postwar period, and the last the run up to the Second World War. I'm certain readers of Roads will recognize the provenance of the first volume's title:  What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle: Can patter out their hasty orisons. . .  Dowager Lady Grantham