A N Wilson

Anyone who read my comments in Kate Flett's Radio Times interview (available at all good stockists), which A N Wilson quotes from selectively in his piece in the Daily Mail (12/3/11), will realise they were made in the context of the fictional world of Downton Abbey in which my character, Robert, could be said to run a 'benign dictatorship'. As I have stated elsewhere, in reality the vast majority of the population had an appalling deal in pre First World War Britain. My point was that millions of people in our own troubled times, while not wanting to live in that era, have taken pleasure in escaping to the imaginary world of Downton Abbey for a couple of hours on a Sunday night. And I am with them. I am not, nor will ever claim to be, a social historian. I hope that clears things up.