The Edwardian Country House (C4)

YOU can't get the staff these days. Lucy the scullery maid was the last to arrive and the first to go, unable to cope with living in a real life Upstairs, Downstairs.

She appeared not to have grasped the concept of the series in which 19 volunteers turn back the clock to 1905 to live as a family and their servants would have done back then.

For Lucy, this wasn't so much living history as living hell as the scullery maid is "the one who gets bossed around by everybody". She packed her bags before the end of the first week of the three-month experiment. "I'm used to my mum doing the cooking and cleaning, and not used to getting up in the morning," she moaned.

Clearly, being at the beck and call of the Olliff-Cooper family in their Edwardian mansion on the English-Scottish border wasn't going to suit her.

The upstairs family seem happy enough surrounded by people whose job is to provide them with cosseted lives from getting up to going to bed. They have plenty to look forward to as, we learnt, wealthy Edwardians spent lavishly, lived dangerously and ate to excess.

Downstairs, matters were less happy as people used to jobs in tourism and the police adjusted to life as footmen and maids. They overslept, putting the family's timetable behind schedule. Dinner was an hour late because kitchen staff couldn't get it together in time.

The rewards for all their hard work are few and far between. Coachman and groom Tristan commented: "The horses have a better life than the servants".

The animals, at least, have underfloor heating rather than cramped rooms and no life of their own. Servants' lives are run by strict rules, from eating in silence to being locked out of the house while their rooms are searched if any of the silver goes missing.

Upstairs, Lady Anna's problems involve clothes. It takes her a hour to get dressed for dinner, three hours for special occasions, and she can't do it without help from her maid.

At dinner, she had difficulty eating soup. The stiffness of her corset hindered lifting the spoon from plate to mouth. I'm sure it's an inconvenience her servants would gladly suffer.