Woman Spitfire pilot who turned down Downton as it would ruin dinner parties!
A FOrMEr Spitfire pilot snubbed Downton Abbey’s request to film at her £ 1.65million mansion because it would ‘disturb’ her dinner party schedule, her family has revealed.
Molly rose OBE, who died aged 95 last year, rejected the approach by the hit period drama, saying: ‘I can’t have Downton Abbey disturbing my life.’
Producers wanted to use her sprawling Cotswold home as the setting for the Crawley family’s dining room.
Her family said the production company even offered to renovate the centrepiece room at eight-bedroom Bampton House and pay her to ease the inconvenience.
But despite being a Downton fan, Mrs rose said they couldn’t use her Oxfordshire house because she did not want ‘filming to interrupt her busy dinner party schedule’.
Had she agreed, the great-grandmother’s Grade II listed Georgian home, in the ancient market town of Bampton, would have become a key location of the hit British series.
However, when producers came knocking in 2011, the former Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) pilot, who delivered hundreds of Spitfires from manufacturers to airfields during the Second World War, was quick to snub their proposal. Yesterday her son Graham
‘Can’t have TV crew disturbing my life’
rose, 70, said: ‘ The Downton Abbey people asked if they could use the dining room as a film set but mother said no.
‘When I asked why, she told me: “They would want to redecorate it and I can’t possibly have that because it will be a disruption. I can’t have Downton Abbey disturbing my life”.
‘Someone went knocking on her door and I don’t know whether she showed him around first unwittingly but he said her dining room would be ideal.
‘My mother said, “Well it might be ideal for you but not for me”.
‘She told me ... it would be far too disruptive and said, “I have got people coming for dinner”.’
He added: ‘She loved watching Downton Abbey which now makes it all the stranger she did not allow them to use her dining room. At the time I was quite cross with her and said, “You really are a miserable old goat”. She said, “I beg your pardon darling.”
‘She would have met people like Maggie Smith and she would have liked that, but it was one of those where I just said, “Over to you, mother”. She was a real character and she lived life to the full.’ Mrs rose, a former parish councillor and magistrate, was in the ATA – a body of civilian flyers who delivered aircraft throughout Britain – from 1942 until 1945, having been awarded her pilot licence aged 17.
Mrs rose, who later received an OBE for her charity work, had bought Bampton House – a former B&B – with her husband Bernard in 1986, after earlier downsizing form the 15-bedroom Appleton manor nearby.
Following her death from a heart attack last October, Bampton House was put on the market, and is now under offer for more than £ 1.5million. Downton Abbey, which was co-produced by Carnival Films and Masterpiece, first aired in September 2010 and ran for six seasons, being watched by millions worldwide.
Many outdoor scenes in the show were filmed in Bampton, though the majority of the exterior filming took place at Highclere Castle in north Hampshire.