10 memories from the book that inspired 'Downton Abbey'

"Below Stairs," the memoir that inspired "Downton Abbey" and "Upstairs, Downstairs," gets a re-release as "Downton Abbey" begins its second season.

5. Anything given to a master or mistress had to go on a tray

Powell picked up the newspapers one morning and handed them to Mrs. Clydesdale, her employer. "She looked at me as if I were something subhuman," Powell writes. "She said, 'Langley, never, never on any occasion ever hand anything to me in your bare hands, always use a silver salver. Surely you know better than that' ... [T]ears started to trickle down my cheeks; that someone could think that you were so low that you couldn't even hand them anything out of your hands without it being placed on a silver salver."

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