Dame Maggie Smith in Wheelchair - why?

[Shaun Hately]

Tonks writes: 

> Tonks:
> OK, educate me in British manners, please. Explain it all. Thanks. 

Shaun: 

Explain it all? That would take a while! 

In a sense, it doesn't really matter, but I was taught to take it seriously, 
partly because it was seen as respectful - these people had earned those 
honours, and we could do them the courtesy of getting it right where 
possible. 

So... in this case. 

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith DBE. 

Dame Maggie is a Dame Commander of the British Empire - a DBE. The Most 
Excellent Order of the British Empire is the largest and most modern of 
Britain's Orders of Chivalry (well, at least of the purely British ones - 
some Commonwealth countries have their own orders which fit into the British 
system). This Order was established in 1917 because King George V wanted a 
way of recognising people who could not easily be honoured in the existing 
system - other Orders either had rather small numbers of people who are 
allowed to hold an order at any one time, and a *lot* of people had done 
things worthy of honour in the First World War, or were only supposed to be 
used for certain people. 

The Order of the British Empire is the largest Order overall, but the 
numbers of Knights (or Dames) Grand Cross and Knight (or Dames) Commander is 
still quite limited. So holding a DBE is a high honour. 

*But* there are still quite a number of honours that are higher, and each 
level has its particular rules as to how holders are addressed. 

Knights or Dames - which are the male and female equivalents of the same 
honour - are by convention addressed as Sir or Dame Firstname Lastname. 

They may be less formally, but correctly addressed as Sir or Dame Firstname. 

They are never properly addressed as Sir or Dame Lastname. 

(For completeness, I should say that these forms of addressed do not apply 
to non-British subjects - Bill Gates, for example, holds an honourary KBE, 
but cannot properly be addressed as Sir William - this practice is largely 
an acknowledgement of the fact that some countries, notably the United 
States, do not allow its citizens to hold titles). 

Even though a Knight is never addressed as Sir Lastname, his wife can be 
addressed as Lady Lastname, just to make things confusing (husbands of Dames 
are entitled to no special form of address). 

Above the Knights and Dames of the various orders, are the Peers - the 
Lords. 

Historically, peerages were hereditary titles that were passed onto a Peers 
male heir (and in some special cases, could be passed onto female heirs) 
while Knighthoods were not passed on, but that isn't absolutely true - 
hereditary knighthoods called baronetcies exist, although they are given out 
*very* rarely today - only one in the last forty years (and the current 
holder of that baronetcy, The Hon. Sir Mark Thatcher, Bt, is rather 
embarassing) and virtually all new peerages over the last 1940s have been 
Life Peerages which are not passed on. 

Peers are sometimes properly addressed as Lord or Lady Lastname, but 
generally only if their Lastname happens to be the same as their title - for 
example Margaret Thatcher is correctly titled as Baroness Thatcher and 
addressed as Lady Thatcher, because her title is Baroness Thatcher of 
Kesteven - whereas Alec Douglas-Home is not Baron Douglas-Home, or Lord 
Douglas-Home, but rather is Baron Home or Lord Home, as his title is Baron 
Home of the Hirsel.

> Tonks:
> So they have made changes from the book yet again. But they should
> *think* about this, because the chair looks like a modern one. And
> the WW is depicted as being in the 18th or 19th century. Even in the
> 1940's U.S. film "It's a Wonderful Life", the bad guy, Mr. Potter,
> is in a wheel chair and it looks much older than what they have for
> Smith. So if they are going to put her in a chair, it should be one
> that fits the era that the WW is in.

Shaun: 

Oh, I agree. 

One of the niggling things that annoys me about the film of Prisoner of 
Azkaban is that the screen Snape uses when showing slides is very obviously 
a pretty modern projector screen. It would have been so easy to use 
something different, so it didn't look like Hogwarts brought Muggle school 
equipment. 

 

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia