Paul O'Grady: My mum's Downton was 'slave labour'

(Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Paul O'Grady says Downton Abbey bears no resemblance to his mum's time as a servant.

The For The Love Of Dogs presenter took part in a documentary about the history of the working classes and spoke about his mum's degrading experiences, says The Sun.

And he said it was nothing like how servant life is depicted in ITV's hit period drama.

In BBC One's two-parter Paul O'Grady's Working Britain, he said: "My mother's experience of domestic service was nothing like Downton Abbey. It was humiliating, monotonous and akin to slave labour.

"She worked for a family in Hoxton and they believed in value for money. They worked them like slaves.

"My mother absolutely hated it. The working day of a maid started at 6am and she couldn't go to bed until everybody else was in bed. No matter how hard a maid worked, there was always more for a maid to do. And 'Her upstairs' was never satisfied."

In the series, which screens in mid-August, Paul is also seen visiting the terraced streets in Birkenhead where he grew up and going down a coal mine.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.