Margaret Powell, whose best-selling books about her experiences in domestic service inspired the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey was born in Hove. One of seven children of a house painter and charwoman, the family lived with her grandmother in three rooms. Her parents could not afford to let her take up the grammar school scholarship she won and instead, at the age of 13, she became a laundress and later a kitchen maid. After marriage and motherhood, noting that she had nothing to talk about with her eldest son who was preparing to go to university, she took evening classes, passing her O-levels at the age of 58. Her memoir, Below Stairs, published in 1968, was an immediate success. Further books and modest prosperity followed and Margaret became a popular guest on television talk shows. A blue plaque marks her birthplace and her name is on a bus.
