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1-26 of 26
- Lord George treats the entire household, including P. C. Wilson, who drives the bus, to a picnic at stately Peabody Hall. Nobody is surprised to find that Ralph and Agatha are also there with their staff - except Lord George, supposedly. Teddy finds he has feelings for Ivy whilst Poppy and James renew some unfinished business. Ralph has a nice afternoon nap due to the brandy with which Agatha has plied him and he thanks George for 'entertaining' her. In the evening both households join together for a sing-song round the campfire.
- Lady Lavender, whom the rest of the family consider to be mad, asks her solicitor Franklyn, to make over all her shares in the United Jack Rubber Company, the family plantation, to Ivy. Later she calls him back. She has changed her mind and the new beneficiary is Alf, who makes sure Lord George has left the house before Franklyn can tell him. James is tormented by thoughts of George's daughter Poppy, who loves feeling his strong muscles, but he is too straight to follow up Alf's suggestion that he make a play for Poppy.
- Fisher the pawnbroker blackmails Alf into letting him into the house, masquerading as a French polisher, to rob the safe whilst the family are watching a recital by the 'progressive' poet Aubrey Wilmslow. Ivy appeals to James to save the situation, which he does, giving the impression that Alf had no idea what was happening and that Fisher is an old comrade fallen on hard times. However it also means that James now knows that Ivy is Alf's daughter.
- When George fails to recognize Mabel, Cissy tells him he should take more interest in staff welfare so, after asking them if their rooms are all right, he invites them to a ball where the employers wait on the servants. Teddy is reunited with his true love Rose, sacked by Madge for her involvement with him, and Alf ensures not only that Mabel is invited but that she is rewarded for an act of honesty, giving a thieving butler his come-uppance in the process.
- After his ordeal in the park, Ralph stays at the Meldrums' to recover but is paranoid and asks Ivy to be his food and wine taster, getting her drunk. Cissy and Poppy confront their father with Agatha's murky past and he considers finishing with her. Myrtle arrives at the house and, posing as Alf's wife, tells Mrs. Lipton she will not divorce him, sending the cook into a plate-smashing rage. It is not the best time for the children Alf has paid to pretend to be grateful orphans appreciating her cakes to turn up, asking for their money.
- Whilst Cissy persuades Ivy to deny that she saw anything go on between Lord George and Lady Agatha, Alf rings Ralph and offers to sell him his shares from Lady Lavender if he drops divorce proceedings. However Lady Lavender has again changed her mind and given the shares to Henry, the boot boy, so Alf buys them from him for sixty pounds. Ivy has heard from her mother, Alf's ex-wife, that she has money problems and Henry is surprised to see Alf kiss Ivy. Alf goes to a pawnbroker to raise cash but the man recalls how years earlier he bought an emerald from Alf, one which Alf stole from Teddy's ring on the battle-field.
- After Ralph puts a curse on George by sticking pins in an effigy, bad things happen. James is run over, the family's American assets plummet in the Wall Street Crash and beetles attack the rubber plantation, so that sub-standard rubber results, making balls that fail to bounce. George has to close the factory but asks the staff to stay on at reduced wages. Poppy agrees to marry Jerry, a dopey admirer, but Teddy is over the moon as the destruction of the rubber plantation frees him from going to Malaya. Furthermore, Madge's father has also lost his money in the crash and so he is free to get a job and marry Rose.
- When Poppy tells Agatha of her engagement to Dickie Metcalfe Agatha is appalled. He is a penniless fortune hunter, blackmailing Agatha over her indiscretions. Poppy, however, will hear nothing bad about Dickie and they drive off to Gretna Green to get married. The family and the staff give chase and catch up with them at Watford Gap where Dickie escapes in Cissy's plane and Ralph takes pot shots at him, incurring his wife's admiration for once. Poppy also reiterates her fondness for James but Ivy is annoyed that she treats him like her lap-dog and he obeys.
- Lord George is sick of keeping Teddy and gives him an ultimatum. Either he marries Madge Cartwright, the heiress to a soap dynasty and a potentially wealthy woman, or he will have to go and work in the family's rubber factory. Teddy, who prefers servant girls to his own class, would rather be dating Madge's maid Rose than Madge herself but George calls his bluff and sends him to the factory. Alf, meanwhile, has found a load of money under Lady Lavender's bed and aims to get his hands on it.
- Lord George considers having Lady Lavender certified insane for giving Alf her shares but the butler refuses to part with them. James misinterprets the signs when Poppy asks him for a midnight feast together and Mrs. Lipton plays a trick on Teddy to stop him molesting Ivy. At a fancy dress party to celebrate the birthday of George's other daughter, the extremely masculine Cissie, Ivy tells Lord Ralph about his wife's affair with George, not knowing who he is.
- P. C. Wilson cheers up Mrs. Lipton with a bunch of flowers - from the front garden - whilst Lady Lavender invites the staff to the wedding of her pet parrots. With Cissy a potential Labour candidate and himself anxious to join the board of governors of the BBC, Lord George feels he should take on the workers' point of view and invites three of his factory staff to a dinner of fish and chips. The evening is neither a flop nor a success though it awakens Teddy's liking for fish and chips and unites Alf and James in their discontent that they are not the workers enjoying Lord George's wines.
- Lord George wants to put Lady Lavender's money in the bank but when she hears an organ-grinder in the street below, she throws it out of the window. Staff and family are told they will be grounded until it is all recovered and the money is all returned - apparently. Alf has taken some for himself and hidden it in one of a set of three vases the Meldrums have given the Bishop for his charity auction. Alf is desperate to recover it.
- Following the plate smashing incident, Mrs. Lipton fears for her job, but Alf speaks up for her and she is not sacked. However she takes to her bed and the other staff must do the cooking. Cissy stands as a Labour candidate, whilst Poppy brings home her new beau, the rich and handsome Dickie Metcalfe. Ivy takes tea at the Sunshine Pantry where she discovers her father's cake selling scam and forces him to stop it.
- During the First World War Alf Stokes and James Twelvetrees, two private soldiers, save the life of officer Teddy Meldrum. He is eternally grateful. In 1927 James is working as the footman in the house of Lord George, Teddy's older brother, and hopes to fill the vacancy created by the recently-departed butler. However Alf, a former butler, and his daughter Ivy, have just lost their jobs as music hall performers. Alf comes to the Meldrum house and, to James's annoyance, is made the new butler thanks to Teddy and some references acquired by blackmail. Ivy gets a job as a maid but Alf keeps their relationship secret and she assumes her mother's maiden name, Teasdale.
- In a public park Ralph spots Teddy courting Madge's maid Rose, as well as seeing Agatha with another, younger man, which leads to a fight with Lord George and the intervention of P. C. Wilson. Alf cons Mrs. Lipton into believing she is baking cakes for the local orphanage when, in fact, he is selling them to the proprietress of a café. He gets in touch with Myrtle, his former partner from his knife-throwing act, and asks her to pose as his wife to prevent Mrs. Lipton from marrying him
- A reluctant Teddy is fitted for his tropical kit as George decides to send him to oversee the family rubber plantation in Malaya. Lady Lavender's parrot dies and, at her insistence, is buried with full military honours. Alf volunteers James's services as a stud to ensure the Earl of Swaffham's family line continues, but he is turned down as his eyes are too close together. Thanks to Ivy, though, everybody remembers his birthday for the first time ever.
- James kisses Poppy, who this time does not protest but Mrs. Lipton's cooking is under fire, following the discovery of an earwig, so outside caterers are hired for a banquet to entertain the impoverished ex-king and queen of Dalmatia, its central attraction being a sugar swan - whose head falls off. Noel Coward also shows up but prefers to spend the evening with Lady Lavender drinking champagne in her room.
- James' rough diamond of a father arrives in the middle of the night, on the run from an armed gang for whom he refused to shoot a gun and the police. Despite their differences Alf will not see James disgraced and, as the other staff members discover about the fugitive, he arranges to send him on a banana boat to South America next evening. Helped by the socially-aware Cissy the staff manage to get their passenger on board in time, despite the presence of Lady Lavender, who tags along in the belief that she is eloping with Captain Dalby.
- Teddy resigns himself to his forced engagement to Madge Cartwright whilst the girls start to suspect their father's dalliance with Agatha. Alf pretends to woo Mrs. Lipton so she will lend him fifteen pounds to bid for the vases at the charity auction. He successfully buys them but, due to other bidders, has to pay more than he expected and ends up out of pocket.
- James is offered the post of butler with Ralph Shawcross and, apart from Alf, nobody wants him to leave, particularly love-struck Poppy, who promises to pay him more money to stay, and Ivy. Mabel, the daily skivvy, is also grateful to him when he lends her rent money and there is general jubilation when the job offer is withdrawn. Not only that but Cissy has been elected as a Socialist member, to her father's horror but the staff's delight. Alf's advice to Teddy to feign impotence to get out of marrying Madge Cartwright, however, backfires.
- James and Mrs. Lipton, the cook, are suspicious of Ivy, who seems unused to service. Ivy almost catches Lord George in bed with Lady Agatha, wife of his friend Sir Ralph, who, according to George's mother-in-law, Lady Lavender, horse-whips his wives' lovers. Teddy suspects but George reminds him of his own fondness for serving maids. Nonetheless George is nervous and when somebody paints 'Fornicator' on the side of his car, the staff must hide the offending sight from the visiting bishop. Alf, however, sees the opportunity to make money by being Cupid's messenger for the illicit lovers. James shows his disapproval.
- At a British Legion reunion, Alf gets drunk with Ralph's butler Selfridge, and divulges that George is not impotent at all. Still drunk, Selfridge gets the sack, but tells Ralph all about George and Agatha. Ralph invites the Meldrums and their staff to a weekend house party where he makes two attempts to kill George though he finally breaks down, admitting that he cannot do it.
- Ralph confronts Lord George with his suspicions of Agatha's infidelity but Alf puts him off the scent by claiming that his employer is impotent due to a war wound. George meanwhile believes Agatha is seeing somebody else. James uses Ivy as an excuse to get out of a compromising situation with Poppy but, seeing that he has hurt her, takes her to the pictures - as a friend. Alf stalls Mrs. Lipton by claiming that his wife refuses to divorce him.
- Teddy's sexual harassment of some of the factory girls leads to a strike. Alf persuades Lord George to address the strikers but his efforts are feeble and Alf, knowing that his employer has to be home by evening to entertain the prime minister, conducts his own negotiations - leading to a pay rise and Teddy's dismissal. Lord George asks Ivy and Henry to take the money from under Lady Lavender's bed but she has hidden it somewhere else.
- The factory is saved, thanks to Lady Lavender selling her jewels to finance efficient new machinery and Cissy forms a workers' cooperative to run it fairly. Teddy marries Rose and becomes a successful car salesman. George reduces his staff with Mabel taking over as cook when Mrs. Lipton marries P. C. Wilson and they retire to the country. Henry becomes the new butler when Alf returns to the music halls and Ivy, after a brief stint alongside him, joins James as his partner running a boarding house.