0:00:04 > 0:00:07'What's the most important date in British history?
0:00:07 > 0:00:10'1066 - the Battle of Hastings?
0:00:10 > 0:00:13'1666 - the Great Fire of London?
0:00:13 > 0:00:17'1966 then - England win the World Cup?
0:00:19 > 0:00:24'What about 1851? Ring any bells? No?
0:00:24 > 0:00:28'That's because it's one of the most overlooked
0:00:28 > 0:00:31'but most significant moments of all.'
0:00:31 > 0:00:35This is the summary of the 1851 census -
0:00:35 > 0:00:39one of those great Victorian state-of-the-nation surveys.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42And all the figures here relate to the number of people
0:00:42 > 0:00:44living in towns and cities
0:00:44 > 0:00:49as against those living in what it calls "the country parts".
0:00:49 > 0:00:52And the important figure is the figure at the top here,
0:00:52 > 0:00:54the totals for England and Wales.
0:00:55 > 0:01:01The number of people living in the country - 8,936,800.
0:01:01 > 0:01:08The number living in towns and cities - 8,990,809.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13So, by a very small margin - about 50,000 or so -
0:01:13 > 0:01:17there are more urban dwellers than rural dwellers.
0:01:19 > 0:01:241851 was a tipping point - the first time ever that a major nation
0:01:24 > 0:01:27had become a predominantly urban nation.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31And that changed everything - not just where we lived,
0:01:31 > 0:01:35but how we lived, what jobs we did, what we thought of ourselves and,
0:01:35 > 0:01:39most significantly, what we thought about the home that the majority
0:01:39 > 0:01:43of us had just left and to which we would not return -
0:01:43 > 0:01:45the countryside.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58From that point on, a deeply-felt
0:01:58 > 0:02:02but essentially nostalgic rural vision took hold.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08The countryside increasingly became a refuge from troubling realities -
0:02:08 > 0:02:14like national decline, world war and even our own mortality.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21What we looked for in the countryside was often fanciful,
0:02:21 > 0:02:24even downright eccentric.
0:02:26 > 0:02:31But these rural reimaginings acted as a creative catalyst,
0:02:31 > 0:02:37inspiring some of our most powerful art and best-loved literature.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44The idealised vision of the countryside which emerged
0:02:44 > 0:02:49in the 19th century had far more to do with what was going on
0:02:49 > 0:02:52in the hearts and minds of the exiled and harassed city dwellers
0:02:52 > 0:02:57than anything that was actually going on out in the shires.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01But this romantic view of an unspoilt Arcadia -
0:03:01 > 0:03:05a green and pleasant land - seized the Victorian imagination
0:03:05 > 0:03:07and has dominated ours ever since.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18Each generation has looked to the countryside for different reasons -
0:03:18 > 0:03:22inspiration, consolation, or escape.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28Whilst the city propels us into an uncertain future,
0:03:28 > 0:03:33these green, unspoilt places take our hand and lead us back
0:03:33 > 0:03:35to a simpler, more stable past.
0:03:35 > 0:03:40So, where can we find the "olden days"?
0:03:40 > 0:03:41Right here.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07MUFFLED TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT
0:04:13 > 0:04:17'In 1862, one of Britain's leading artists decided to
0:04:17 > 0:04:19'escape from the city.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29'Myles Birket Foster came from a family which ran
0:04:29 > 0:04:32'one of the biggest beer-bottling companies in the world.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37'But he had more highbrow ambitions
0:04:37 > 0:04:41'and abandoned the family business for the life of an artist.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45'The railway now reached deep into the Home Counties,
0:04:45 > 0:04:50'and it was Surrey which was to become Birket Foster's muse.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55'He understood what city-dwellers needed -
0:04:55 > 0:04:58'a green balm for their weary souls.'
0:05:02 > 0:05:06This is the Merry Harriers in the village of Hambledon.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Birket Foster's painting of the pub is one of his best-known works.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16In the 19th century, Birket Foster was huge.
0:05:16 > 0:05:20He was so popular that when Queen Victoria tried to buy a picture
0:05:20 > 0:05:21she liked at an exhibition,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25she found it was already sold, and the buyer refused to part with it.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28She loved this stuff, and so did everybody else.
0:05:28 > 0:05:33And what the Victorians really went for was an idealised,
0:05:33 > 0:05:37sentimentalised vision of the countryside.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43This is a classic Birket Foster, it's called The Country Inn,
0:05:43 > 0:05:46and it was painted in 1863,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50but it's already set in a receding, "olden days" past.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54And all the Birket Foster cliches are here - the blue sky,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57the sunshine - it's always summer in the village -
0:05:57 > 0:06:01and everyone there is happy and relaxed and well fed.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Even the animals are well fed, the horses, the ducks,
0:06:04 > 0:06:06the chickens, the pigs.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10Interestingly, there is not a hint of modernity in the picture -
0:06:10 > 0:06:13the artist has even taken out the road that actually
0:06:13 > 0:06:17runs in front of the pub. So, there are no trains, there are no
0:06:17 > 0:06:22new-fangled steam engines, nothing to disturb the peace
0:06:22 > 0:06:27and tranquillity that the harassed Victorian city dwellers craved.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38Birket Foster's paintings, with their antiquated haywains
0:06:38 > 0:06:43and apple-cheeked maids, were the latest expression of a very
0:06:43 > 0:06:47ancient idea in art and literature - the pastoral.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52The point of the pastoral was to use the countryside to highlight
0:06:52 > 0:06:54the evils of city living.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57A rural utopia was contrasted with
0:06:57 > 0:06:59an urban cess-pit of misery and vice.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06But life out in the sticks wasn't exactly a bed of roses.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11The tension between illusion and reality can be seen clearly
0:07:11 > 0:07:13in Oakhurst Cottage in Hambledon -
0:07:13 > 0:07:17a place Birket Foster painted again and again.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22From the census of 1851, we know a little about the family that
0:07:22 > 0:07:26lived in this cottage - the Nalders.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29The head of the household was William, with his wife, Ann,
0:07:29 > 0:07:33and his three children, William, Eliza, and Harriet.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37William was a labourer, and we know from farm records that at one point
0:07:37 > 0:07:43in 1851 he earned eight shillings from tying truss straws,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46which means tying up bundles of hay.
0:07:46 > 0:07:51At another point, in 1852, he earned one shilling and four pence for
0:07:51 > 0:07:56rinsing bark - cleaning oak bark for use in local tanning yards.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59It looks like he was a seasonal worker, which meant that he
0:07:59 > 0:08:03was paid piecemeal, and in bad times not at all.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12Many labourers and their families ended up in the dreaded workhouse.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16It was a hard life, and sometimes a harsh one,
0:08:16 > 0:08:18certainly one that was difficult to square
0:08:18 > 0:08:21with Birket Foster's bucolic idyll.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31Occasionally, even Birket Foster had to acknowledge reality.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35Engravings of his paintings were used to illustrate
0:08:35 > 0:08:40poems by Tom Taylor - a writer and editor of Punch magazine.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46"The cottage-homes of England! Yes, I know
0:08:46 > 0:08:49"How picturesque their moss and weather-stain,
0:08:49 > 0:08:53"All these I know - know, too, the plagues that prey
0:08:53 > 0:08:57"On those who dwell in these bepainted bowers:
0:08:57 > 0:09:00"The foul miasma of their crowded rooms."
0:09:03 > 0:09:07In his poem, Tom Taylor was claiming that thatched cottages
0:09:07 > 0:09:09were in fact rural slums.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13For once, Birket Foster's illustrations seemed
0:09:13 > 0:09:15to confront this poverty.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21The thatch on the cottages was unkempt.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26In place of pretty young girls, there was a decrepit older woman.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30There was even a scythe - a symbol of death and decay.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Birket Foster's Old Cottages illustrations proved
0:09:36 > 0:09:38a fleeting brush with reality.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42For the rest of his career, he kept up the fiction of a rural Arcadia.
0:09:42 > 0:09:45The public lapped it up,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47and rose-tinted images of the countryside
0:09:47 > 0:09:50produced by Birket Foster and countless imitators
0:09:50 > 0:09:54have been reproduced on calendars, Christmas cards, chocolate boxes
0:09:54 > 0:09:56and coasters ever since.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00But when Birket Foster died in 1899,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03the Times obituary was a bit more sniffy.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07It said, "From 1860 until the day of his death,
0:10:07 > 0:10:09"his style never varied,
0:10:09 > 0:10:13"his eye saw everything under the same convention -
0:10:13 > 0:10:17"an exquisitely pretty convention, but one remote from all
0:10:17 > 0:10:21"but the superficial and idyllic aspects of nature."
0:10:24 > 0:10:28By the end of the 19th century, the real countryside was in crisis,
0:10:28 > 0:10:33blighted by disease, failed harvests and, above all,
0:10:33 > 0:10:35cheap imports which ruined many farmers.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41People left their villages in increasing numbers.
0:10:41 > 0:10:43Farmland turned to waste.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47There was a growing feeling that the natural world itself
0:10:47 > 0:10:49was under threat.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55It was against this backdrop
0:10:55 > 0:10:59that a band of mainly urban and middle class do-gooders launched
0:10:59 > 0:11:02the modern conservation movement.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05A host of different organisations emerged,
0:11:05 > 0:11:08all dedicated to preserving the rural "olden days"
0:11:08 > 0:11:10in its many forms.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Some battled to save Britain's wildest and most beautiful places.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23Bird-lovers turned their attention to our most threatened breeds.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29Others wanted to conserve not just the countryside,
0:11:29 > 0:11:32but its ancient architectural treasures.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36And then there were those who were determined to rescue
0:11:36 > 0:11:39the culture of the English peasantry itself.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46The man who spearheaded the folk music revival was the all-singing,
0:11:46 > 0:11:51all-dancing musician Cecil Sharp - known, of course, as C Sharp.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55By the early 20th century,
0:11:55 > 0:11:59continental composers dominated the classical scene.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01But Sharp was a fierce patriot.
0:12:01 > 0:12:06He longed for tunes which would express the genius of the English.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09ACCORDIAN MUSIC PLAYS
0:12:12 > 0:12:16In 1903, he heard the song which would inspire
0:12:16 > 0:12:18a home-grown musical revolution.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30He was staying with his friend, Charles Marson,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33who was the vicar of Hambridge in Somerset.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37And the story goes he heard the gardener,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41a man called John England - what a wonderful name for a folk
0:12:41 > 0:12:44singer to have - singing a song called The Seeds of Love.
0:12:44 > 0:12:46# I sowed the seeds of love
0:12:46 > 0:12:51# And I sowed them in the spring
0:12:51 > 0:12:55# I gathered them up in the morning so soon
0:12:55 > 0:12:59# While the small birds do sweetly sing
0:12:59 > 0:13:03# While the small birds do sweetly sing. #
0:13:04 > 0:13:08And that day he took the song down, he arranged it,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11then he performed it with a piano that night.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14And that was really the turning point, in a way,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18because it initiated a period of tremendous activity.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Between that period and his death, in 1924,
0:13:21 > 0:13:25he collected about 5,000 pieces.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30# One morning in the month of June
0:13:30 > 0:13:34# Down by a rolling river... #
0:13:36 > 0:13:40You might expect sentimental conservatives to get misty-eyed
0:13:40 > 0:13:43about this stuff, but Sharp was very different.
0:13:43 > 0:13:48He was an austere intellectual, a vegetarian and a socialist.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52# Her cheeks were red, her eyes were brown... #
0:13:52 > 0:13:54For him, folk music was the soundtrack
0:13:54 > 0:13:57to more egalitarian times.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01Sharp believed "peasant songs",
0:14:01 > 0:14:04as he called them without a hint of self-consciousness,
0:14:04 > 0:14:09could inspire social change in his own deeply divided age.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13To find these authentic "peasant songs",
0:14:13 > 0:14:15Sharp travelled round the country,
0:14:15 > 0:14:20seeking out remote villages, supposedly untouched by modernity.
0:14:21 > 0:14:26# How came you here so early... #
0:14:28 > 0:14:32Sharp's insistence on the purity of his collection of folk songs
0:14:32 > 0:14:37was potentially problematic, because most of the people from whom
0:14:37 > 0:14:41he collected the songs had little idea where they'd got them from.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44Sharp couldn't be sure of the age of the song,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48which particular village it came from, or even if it was a genuinely
0:14:48 > 0:14:54rural song or one borrowed from the city and then recycled later.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57Because after 100 years of industrialisation,
0:14:57 > 0:15:01urbanisation and the spread of the railways, it was open to
0:15:01 > 0:15:06question whether an uncontaminated rural culture still existed.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09Perhaps the only place you could be certain of finding
0:15:09 > 0:15:14an unspoilt English peasant singing his bucolic ballad handed
0:15:14 > 0:15:19down from generation to generation was in Sharp's own imagination.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21Sharp and his friends are going out
0:15:21 > 0:15:23to find this authentic music of old England.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26What's happening in the modern England at the time?
0:15:26 > 0:15:29The days of the Great Exhibition are behind us.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32Germany and America are overtaking Britain.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34You know, there's social problems.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37When it comes to the Boer War, for example, you've got
0:15:37 > 0:15:41loads of people just unfit to serve because they're not physically fit.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45So you've got this whole notion of someone going into the towns
0:15:45 > 0:15:47and the race deteriorating in the towns.
0:15:47 > 0:15:52A lot of people are worried about the sort of society
0:15:52 > 0:15:56that's been created by urbanisation and industrialism.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01So there's a sense in which you can see this folk song/folk dance
0:16:01 > 0:16:05movement as somehow an attempt to ameliorate that,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08to give something back to the urban society
0:16:08 > 0:16:11that's been lost from the rural society.
0:16:11 > 0:16:14Quite idealistic, but nevertheless something people felt.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18Ultimately he believes that it's going to be the material
0:16:18 > 0:16:21for a sort of cultural regeneration of the country,
0:16:21 > 0:16:24- we're all going to sing these songs and...- Dance these dances.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27..dance these dances and, you know, it's going to do us good.
0:16:27 > 0:16:32# I had not the liberty to choose for myself
0:16:32 > 0:16:35# Of the flowers that I should wear... #
0:16:35 > 0:16:39Urban Britain fell in love with Sharp's rediscoveries
0:16:39 > 0:16:40and by the early 20th century,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44the country was in the grip of a huge folk music revival.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47Sharp's programme of national regeneration
0:16:47 > 0:16:50was about to receive a huge boost.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55# There was a frog lived in a well
0:16:55 > 0:16:57# Whipsee diddledee dandy dee... #
0:16:57 > 0:17:00In 1906, The National Song Book
0:17:00 > 0:17:03was published for use in elementary schools.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07The Board of Education had decided that folk music was henceforth
0:17:07 > 0:17:09to be included in the curriculum.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13Schoolchildren, including myself,
0:17:13 > 0:17:18were still being taught these folk songs as late as the 1960s.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25The folk revival wasn't just a British phenomenon.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29Other European countries also looked to the rural past
0:17:29 > 0:17:33for the things which they felt made them unique.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39All this dressing up looked harmless enough,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42but it was one sign of a spirit of aggressive nationalism
0:17:42 > 0:17:46which contributed to the outbreak of war in 1914.
0:17:53 > 0:17:58In Britain, the countryside proved to be a potent recruitment tool.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01More than 12 million posters were issued in the first two years
0:18:01 > 0:18:05of the war, and many featured heart-warming vistas.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11An idealised landscape of rolling hills and thatched cottages
0:18:11 > 0:18:14reminded people of what was at stake.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20This rural propaganda worked, even though many recruits
0:18:20 > 0:18:23had never seen a thatched cottage in their lives.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27No matter, this was the heart and soul of the whole nation,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30and even kilted Highlanders agreed!
0:18:39 > 0:18:42The landscape of the Western Front was very different.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49Traumatised soldiers couldn't have felt further from home.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57No wonder the "olden days" looked appealing by comparison.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01FOLK MUSIC PLAYS
0:19:03 > 0:19:07One of Cecil Sharp's legacies, alongside the revival of folk music,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10was the rediscovery of folk dance.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13Sharp had become a world expert.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16Here he is in a film from 1912,
0:19:16 > 0:19:21cutting a caper in his three-piece suit, although his half-poussettes
0:19:21 > 0:19:24and hands-four weren't always perfectly executed.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32For its aficionados, Morris dancing was the artistic
0:19:32 > 0:19:35expression of what was known as Merrie England -
0:19:35 > 0:19:40a mythical medieval golden age when life was a lot jollier.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47For people disturbed by the tragic unravelling of the 20th century,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50Merrie England was a symbol of everything
0:19:50 > 0:19:52that their own age wasn't.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58One of the most ardent advocates of Merrie England
0:19:58 > 0:20:00was folk dance teacher Daisy Daking,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04who was described by one contemporary as "London born,
0:20:04 > 0:20:08"deadly efficient, three feet high."
0:20:08 > 0:20:12In 1917, Miss Daking set off for northern France
0:20:12 > 0:20:16on a special assignment - to rehabilitate wounded
0:20:16 > 0:20:20and war-weary soldiers through Morris dancing.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24FOLK MUSIC PLAYS
0:20:37 > 0:20:41In Daisy Daking's mind, there was a certain amount of wishful thinking.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45She imagined that most of the soldiers were country lads,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48ploughboys in khaki, whereas, in fact,
0:20:48 > 0:20:51most of them came from towns and cities.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55They were more familiar with the music hall than the maypole.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58Their favourite songs were foreign imports,
0:20:58 > 0:21:03American hits like Down Home In Tennessee rather than traditional
0:21:03 > 0:21:08English folk songs like Jenny Pluck Pears or Gathering Peascods.
0:21:08 > 0:21:12Many of them wouldn't have known what a peascod was.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14But Daisy Daking was on a mission.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17"It is their own folk art," she said.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20"Though they may not know it, it is in their blood."
0:21:20 > 0:21:25And she was determined that they would learn to love Morris dancing.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28FOLK MUSIC CONTINUES
0:21:43 > 0:21:47The first Morris dances were not a great success -
0:21:47 > 0:21:49the men were too shy to join in.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52Miss Daking, however, had a solution...
0:21:52 > 0:21:55"Remember to dig out the Australians first,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58"as they are always ready for anything," she said.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02"Pair them off with any Scots, as these are born dancers."
0:22:02 > 0:22:04FOLK MUSIC CONTINUES
0:22:06 > 0:22:10An eyewitness described one of Daking's classes...
0:22:10 > 0:22:14"The dancers are none of them clumsy. On the contrary,
0:22:14 > 0:22:17"considering the weight of their thick-soled boots,
0:22:17 > 0:22:20"they're remarkably light on their feet.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25"The popularity of these dances is accounted for by the fact that
0:22:25 > 0:22:29"the movement and rhythm were evolved by their fathers,
0:22:29 > 0:22:31"and are native to men of their race."
0:22:35 > 0:22:40Morris dancing in the middle of a war seems ludicrous,
0:22:40 > 0:22:43and Daisy Daking was perfectly aware of this.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47She said that when she first tried to introduce it, people told her
0:22:47 > 0:22:49she was being "somewhat silly".
0:22:49 > 0:22:52There was Miss Daking telling war-weary troops that this
0:22:52 > 0:22:58dance dates back to 1650, the time of Merrie England,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02or asking them to imagine they were on a village green
0:23:02 > 0:23:06back in Blighty, rather than in a hut on the Western Front.
0:23:09 > 0:23:11But it worked.
0:23:11 > 0:23:13As a reminder of an idealised home,
0:23:13 > 0:23:18as a wholesome communal activity, or just as a distraction
0:23:18 > 0:23:21from the horrors of war, Morris dancing caught on.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24And the soldiers were very grateful.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27Here's a beautiful tribute to Daisy Daking from some of those who
0:23:27 > 0:23:29had taken part.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33It says, "To Daisy Daking, from friends who keenly appreciate your
0:23:33 > 0:23:37"successful efforts to arouse deep interest in English folk dancing."
0:23:37 > 0:23:41And then there's a list of names - the Atkinsons, the Donnellys,
0:23:41 > 0:23:44the Flemings, the Mackintoshes,
0:23:44 > 0:23:46the Robertsons, so it goes on.
0:23:46 > 0:23:51At one stage, 100 men a day were passing through her classes, and
0:23:51 > 0:23:55these are men who were suffering from shell-shock and depression.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00Her verdict on the effect she could have was typically modest.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03She said, "We got the grey look off their faces."
0:24:10 > 0:24:13During the Great War, the countryside was a place of
0:24:13 > 0:24:16psychological refuge for soldiers.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19So, when the troops returned home,
0:24:19 > 0:24:23it was a cleaner, greener future that they longed for.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30What many of them aspired to was a home in the leafy suburbs.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32To accommodate their dreams,
0:24:32 > 0:24:37the biggest house-building programme in British history began.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41Birmingham's experience was typical of what happened to many cities.
0:24:41 > 0:24:46Between the wars, more than a 100,000 homes were built there.
0:24:46 > 0:24:52But for a new suburban utopia to be born, an old, rural one had to die.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04For the writer JRR Tolkien, nowhere was more beloved than Sarehole.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07In the early 20th century,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10it was a village several miles outside Birmingham.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14Tolkien dramatised the fate which befell Sarehole -
0:25:14 > 0:25:18the story of this Warwickshire village spawned
0:25:18 > 0:25:23one of the most successful literary and film franchises of all time.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Tolkien was born in South Africa in 1892.
0:25:33 > 0:25:37He arrived in Sarehole on a family holiday when he was three years old.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40But after the sudden death of his father,
0:25:40 > 0:25:42the family settled in the village.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47The character and virtues of the stout-hearted Warwickshire
0:25:47 > 0:25:50country folk left a lasting impression.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53"I was brought up in considerable poverty,
0:25:53 > 0:25:57"but I was happy running about in that country," Tolkien wrote.
0:25:57 > 0:26:01"I took the idea of the Hobbits from the village people and children."
0:26:03 > 0:26:06METALLIC WHIRRING
0:26:11 > 0:26:14In the middle of Sarehole was an old mill.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18Tolkien and his younger brother were fascinated by it,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21and would sneak in to watch the wheels turn.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28Tolkien nicknamed the grumpy miller "the white ogre"
0:26:28 > 0:26:31because he was often covered in what appeared to be flour.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39Tolkien only lived here for four years, but he called it
0:26:39 > 0:26:43"the longest-seeming and most formative part of my life."
0:26:43 > 0:26:46Sarehole became emblematic of everything about England
0:26:46 > 0:26:49that the child had fallen in love with.
0:26:49 > 0:26:53He described it as a sort of "lost paradise".
0:26:57 > 0:27:01'In 1904, this idyllic childhood was cut short
0:27:01 > 0:27:03'when Tolkien's mother died.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06'He was 12 years old and an orphan.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11'He had to leave Sarehole
0:27:11 > 0:27:14'and move into a succession of grim boarding houses in Birmingham.
0:27:24 > 0:27:26'Tolkien didn't return for many years,
0:27:26 > 0:27:29'and when he did he was devastated.'
0:27:32 > 0:27:35In his diary, he wrote...
0:27:35 > 0:27:37"Where the Bluebell Lane ran down into the Mill Lane,
0:27:37 > 0:27:43"is now a dangerous crossing alive with motors and red lights.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47"How I envy those whose precious early scenery has not been
0:27:47 > 0:27:51"exposed to such violent and peculiarly hideous change."
0:27:55 > 0:27:59Tolkien cautioned against reading messages into his novels,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02but it's almost impossible not to see allusions
0:28:02 > 0:28:04to the land of his lost youth.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12At the heart of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings is the Shire -
0:28:12 > 0:28:16a haven of rural contentment reminiscent of Sarehole.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Threatening it is Mordor -
0:28:19 > 0:28:22a wasteland of furnaces and factories -
0:28:22 > 0:28:24Birmingham by any other name.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32Life is often more complex than myth, and the actual history
0:28:32 > 0:28:36of Tolkien's beloved mill is less romantic than he painted it.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40The white powder he remembered covering the miller may not
0:28:40 > 0:28:43necessarily have been flour from corn.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46The mill was much used at the time for grinding animal bones
0:28:46 > 0:28:48to make fertiliser.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52Before that, in the 19th century, the natural power of the water-wheel
0:28:52 > 0:28:56was supplemented by an industrial steam engine.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58And before that, in the mid-18th century,
0:28:58 > 0:29:03the mill was used as a metal bashing shop, set up by Matthew Boulton -
0:29:03 > 0:29:06one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09So, for much of its working life, the mill that inspired
0:29:09 > 0:29:15the olden days Shire was, in fact, an outpost of modernising Mordor.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27By the mid-1930s, Mordor was marching right across
0:29:27 > 0:29:29the British countryside.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33Pylons sprang up across the shires.
0:29:35 > 0:29:39An expanding road network criss-crossed the nation.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43Vehicles swarmed up hill and down dale.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50With the advent of modernity in the shape of the motor car,
0:29:50 > 0:29:55might the rural "olden days" finally become irrelevant?
0:30:05 > 0:30:11In the 1930s, automobiles offered independence, freedom and adventure.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15The increasingly large number of people taking to the roads
0:30:15 > 0:30:19were part of a new generation of more affluent suburbanites,
0:30:19 > 0:30:22easily mocked because of their comfortable lifestyles
0:30:22 > 0:30:27and bland tastes, but actually hankering for something more
0:30:27 > 0:30:32exciting and more adventurous than the golf course or the tennis club.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36These British explorers got into their new cars,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40drove out of the present, and into the past.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50Motoring guides were published to direct
0:30:50 > 0:30:53the wanderlust of the mobile middle classes.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56The most famous were The Shell Guides,
0:30:56 > 0:30:58sponsored by the Shell Oil Company.
0:31:00 > 0:31:02The poet John Betjeman was the editor.
0:31:02 > 0:31:07The artist John Piper wrote and illustrated a number of the guides.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12Piper had made his name in the early 1930s
0:31:12 > 0:31:15as one of Britain's leading avant-garde painters.
0:31:19 > 0:31:21Having been lured to Paris,
0:31:21 > 0:31:25Piper had fallen for abstract art and European modernism.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30But the new modern world was now transforming the old British
0:31:30 > 0:31:33landscape and, as it did so, Piper,
0:31:33 > 0:31:37who was a country lad at heart, found himself increasingly attracted
0:31:37 > 0:31:41to rural themes like manor houses and village churches.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46Perhaps only Britain could produce an arch-modernist
0:31:46 > 0:31:49who was in love with the "olden days".
0:31:52 > 0:31:55In the Shell Guides, these old and new aspects
0:31:55 > 0:31:59of Piper's artistic persona fused creatively.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05Shell Guides didn't tell you to go and see the obvious sites,
0:32:05 > 0:32:08so don't just go and see Salisbury Cathedral or, you know,
0:32:08 > 0:32:11Bath Abbey, go and look at the things that are, first of all,
0:32:11 > 0:32:15unusual and romantic, but most importantly, and you'll see it
0:32:15 > 0:32:20all through these books, the things that are decaying and disappearing.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23In his book - here it is, Oxfordshire by John Piper -
0:32:23 > 0:32:26he talks about the county of magnificent ruins,
0:32:26 > 0:32:29and that's what he really wants to show you.
0:32:29 > 0:32:31It's all about texture, feeling.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34It's about...it's not just about architecture itself,
0:32:34 > 0:32:35it's about a sensibility.
0:32:37 > 0:32:41Every page of a publication should be a surprise, said Piper,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44said Betjeman. That's the world they belonged to and they loved.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48One of the first images you see as you open Oxfordshire is...
0:32:48 > 0:32:51- A wall full of dead birds. - ..a wall full of dead birds.
0:32:51 > 0:32:53It's like something out of Hitchcock, isn't it?
0:32:53 > 0:32:57These are obviously dead crows and rooks hung up to scare away
0:32:57 > 0:33:00rooks and crows from destroying fields and their crops.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04But it's the idea of an image that's meant to make you jump.
0:33:04 > 0:33:08It's not the roses over the traditional, sweet,
0:33:08 > 0:33:11thatched English cottage, it's dead birds.
0:33:13 > 0:33:17Remember, these books are a meditation on things passing.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20It's a slightly melancholy sensibility, isn't it?
0:33:20 > 0:33:22It's a... Loss pervades.
0:33:22 > 0:33:24This England that you look through now in these books
0:33:24 > 0:33:26has basically gone.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29There's not a village here really you can drive through now that
0:33:29 > 0:33:32hasn't got yellow lines and kerbs and signs everywhere.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36And where the nice, old, rustic pubs were full of farmers...
0:33:36 > 0:33:39- It's all gone. - ..are now gastro-pubs!
0:33:42 > 0:33:45'As the pace of change quickened in the late 1930s,
0:33:45 > 0:33:49'Piper's attention was drawn to the very "olden days" -
0:33:49 > 0:33:54'to manifestations of permanence in an increasingly volatile world.
0:33:55 > 0:34:00'One Oxfordshire monument in particular gripped his imagination.'
0:34:02 > 0:34:07Piper devotes an unusually large entry to the Rollright Stones,
0:34:07 > 0:34:09along with a full-page illustration.
0:34:09 > 0:34:14He writes, "A prehistoric stone circle, after Stonehenge
0:34:14 > 0:34:18"and Avebury, the most celebrated in England."
0:34:19 > 0:34:23As a modernist, the abstract shapes of these weathered stones
0:34:23 > 0:34:27clearly appealed, as did the fact that they overlooked these
0:34:27 > 0:34:31extraordinary views over the heart of England.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35But the date of publication of this guide - 1938 -
0:34:35 > 0:34:40gives a clue as to what else might have been of such special interest.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44Disturbing events in Europe meant that he was already moving
0:34:44 > 0:34:47away from an international, ideological style
0:34:47 > 0:34:52and trying to find something more native, more essentially English.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56And these ancient British stones became a sort of symbol
0:34:56 > 0:35:01of the continuity and stability of British history.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04In fact, I think that's true of the Shell Guides as a whole, which
0:35:04 > 0:35:09became a repository - a storehouse of treasures of national identity.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20With the outbreak of war, national survival became the main concern.
0:35:21 > 0:35:26Artistic inspiration was important, but what Britain really needed
0:35:26 > 0:35:30from the countryside was something more prosaic - food.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35"Today, the farms of Britain are the front line of freedom,"
0:35:35 > 0:35:37Winston Churchill declared.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42With the help of the 80,000-strong Women's Land Army,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46moors and meadows were unsentimentally ploughed up.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50And this was only the first step in a modernising revolution.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00If there's one time in particular when we turned our back on the past
0:36:00 > 0:36:03then it was after the war, in the late 1940s and '50s.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08Britain looked to the future with optimism.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11Science and technology would shape a new age.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18This was no time to be nostalgic about the rural past.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21The countryside had to become more productive.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24Less pastoral. More industrial.
0:36:26 > 0:36:31But the challenge was to make agricultural improvement exciting.
0:36:37 > 0:36:42In 1948, a group of farmers, men from the Ministry of Agriculture
0:36:42 > 0:36:45and BBC producers met in Birmingham.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48And it was at this meeting that one of the farmers suggested
0:36:48 > 0:36:53that what the countryside needed was a "farming Dick Barton".
0:36:53 > 0:36:57Dick Barton was a fictional special agent whose radio adventures
0:36:57 > 0:37:01attracted a regular audience of 15 million listeners.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03So everyone at the meeting burst out laughing -
0:37:03 > 0:37:07what a ludicrous idea, a farming Dick Barton.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11Except the BBC producers, who decided they liked the idea
0:37:11 > 0:37:14of making life in the countryside dramatic.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18The programme they went on to develop soon eclipsed Dick Barton
0:37:18 > 0:37:21and became one of the most successful radio programmes
0:37:21 > 0:37:23of all time.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27THE ARCHERS THEME TUNE PLAYS
0:37:33 > 0:37:37Subtitled "An everyday story of country folk",
0:37:37 > 0:37:41The Archers is set in the fictional village of Ambridge.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45The original idea was to seed each episode
0:37:45 > 0:37:47with cutting-edge farming advice.
0:37:49 > 0:37:51Here, go-getting Dan Archer, his wife Doris
0:37:51 > 0:37:54and his stuck-in-the-mud farm hand Simon
0:37:54 > 0:37:58talk about how to modernise egg production.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01'We can get the battery house shifted up here quick as you like.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03'You need three square feet per bird for the best results.'
0:38:03 > 0:38:07- 'What's Chris getting for you? - Some spectacles for the hens. Eh?'
0:38:07 > 0:38:08LAUGHTER
0:38:08 > 0:38:10'Yes, spectacles for the hens.
0:38:10 > 0:38:14'One or two of 'em have started pulling each other's feathers out.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17'I dunno, missus, first Christine wants to give 'em electric light
0:38:17 > 0:38:20'at night so as they can read in bed, and now Gaffer's
0:38:20 > 0:38:23'providing 'em with spectacles so as they wouldn't strain their eyes.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26'I dunno what farming's comin' to, that I don't.'
0:38:29 > 0:38:34The Archers may have begun life as a way of promoting intensive
0:38:34 > 0:38:37farming, but what it stands for has changed over time.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41Nowadays, it isn't an advocate of modernity -
0:38:41 > 0:38:44arguably, it's become a refuge from it.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50So, Ian, welcome to Ambridge.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52This is it. I am privileged.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54- This is it, this is Ambridge. - THEY LAUGH
0:38:54 > 0:38:58Oh, is this...this is a cottage door, is it?
0:38:58 > 0:39:00Yes, many a door.
0:39:00 > 0:39:02- DOOR CLOSES FIRMLY - That's good. Very good.
0:39:02 > 0:39:04- Oh, that's good, isn't it? - You have a job!
0:39:04 > 0:39:08'Up to 5 million people still visit Ambridge each week.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13'For many, it's their only regular encounter with rural life.'
0:39:13 > 0:39:15What's that then?
0:39:15 > 0:39:18This is old recording tape.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22- What's it meant to be? - We use it for straw.
0:39:22 > 0:39:23Oh, you're kidding!
0:39:23 > 0:39:26Yes, you kind of spread it on the floor a bit.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29If you're in a barn or something with the cows,
0:39:29 > 0:39:31it's just got that nice...
0:39:31 > 0:39:34- Crunch.- ..crunch to it. - THEY LAUGH
0:39:34 > 0:39:36Brilliant. And what else have we got?
0:39:37 > 0:39:40'In The Archers studio, modern technology is harnessed to
0:39:40 > 0:39:45'a very old idea - of the countryside as the place of escape.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49'The green hills of Borsetshire are a soothing contrast to the grey
0:39:49 > 0:39:52'cities where most people live.'
0:39:52 > 0:39:55And if we've got scenes, for example, where we've got people
0:39:55 > 0:39:57at the top of Lakey Hill and someone needs to run all the way down
0:39:57 > 0:39:59to the bottom, they can run off.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02And if I run off and I'm getting further and further away...
0:40:02 > 0:40:03VOICE FADES
0:40:03 > 0:40:06..hopefully I've now reached the very bottom of Lakey Hill.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09- I'm absolutely miles away. - Yeah, you sound miles away.
0:40:09 > 0:40:13And I'm just going to run back very fast all the way up the hill.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16And I'm just coming back now and, oh, I'm hardly out of breath,
0:40:16 > 0:40:18but I have just run all the way to the bottom of Lakey Hill.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20That is absolutely brilliant.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23It's a trick of the acoustics and the design of the studio,
0:40:23 > 0:40:27that I can go a very short distance, but sound miles away.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30I feel here that I am literally in the heart of the countryside,
0:40:30 > 0:40:32- but I'm in the middle of Birmingham!- Yeah, quite.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34THEY LAUGH
0:40:34 > 0:40:38Agricultural innovation does still rear its head in Ambridge.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42But these days, change doesn't necessarily mean progress.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44Take Debbie Aldridge, for example.
0:40:44 > 0:40:48Her new-fangled farming schemes are causing quite a stir.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53The first thing I wanted to ask was the plans for the mega-dairy -
0:40:53 > 0:40:57I mean, how can you possibly have been behind that?
0:40:57 > 0:41:00- I think the very important thing to remember...- Yeah.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03- ..is that Debbie Aldridge... - Yeah.- ..is a character.
0:41:03 > 0:41:04Oh, is that right(?)
0:41:04 > 0:41:09And I am an actor who plays her. So I don't know...
0:41:09 > 0:41:12So you don't really approve of putting all those cattle
0:41:12 > 0:41:16- in a big factory?- Well, I don't know anything about it.- Right.
0:41:17 > 0:41:21But, if you listen to The Archers, and staggering numbers of people do,
0:41:21 > 0:41:25yes, it's full of sort of oddities and odd members of the family,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28but there's something that makes the Archers still stick together.
0:41:28 > 0:41:30It sort of works, doesn't it,
0:41:30 > 0:41:33as a group of people who vaguely function.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35You've got fantastic characters.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38But, more than that, you've got people who talk to one another.
0:41:38 > 0:41:40And I think generally we don't have
0:41:40 > 0:41:42those sorts of conversations in life, do we?
0:41:42 > 0:41:45We send a text, or we ping off... "I'll ping off an e-mail to you!"
0:41:45 > 0:41:47- Yeah.- And, you know, we don't write letters,
0:41:47 > 0:41:49we don't pick up the telephone,
0:41:49 > 0:41:51but in The Archers they really do pick up the telephone a lot.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54Yes, and they sit down with a cup of tea a lot.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57And a cup of tea. There's less and less interaction.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00So maybe there's a fondness for that, the longing for those times
0:42:00 > 0:42:03when you could just say to someone, "How are you doing?"
0:42:03 > 0:42:06- And expect some sort of coherent response.- Yes.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09But that sort of is a lovely reflection of us as human beings -
0:42:09 > 0:42:13that, you know, you may have, as you do, 5,000 Facebook friends...
0:42:13 > 0:42:17- I have none.- ..and, you know, 20 million Twitter followers...
0:42:17 > 0:42:20- I'm not on Twitter.- ..as you do!
0:42:20 > 0:42:22You know, the reality is that we can probably hold...
0:42:22 > 0:42:24And no friends either!
0:42:24 > 0:42:29Yeah, but I knew that. We can probably hold about 20 people...
0:42:29 > 0:42:34- Yeah.- ..you know, in our circle of realistic relationships.- Yeah.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37And so, The Archers reflects that very well.
0:42:37 > 0:42:41And, you know, we have very shallow, very narrow relationships, really,
0:42:41 > 0:42:42- that are techno-based.- Yeah.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45And we don't sit down and, you know, have a cup of tea.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48- And is it... - It is so nice to talk to you.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51- Yeah, it is lovely to talk to you! - THEY LAUGH
0:42:51 > 0:42:53And I've got time, you see.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04With over 17,000 episodes and counting,
0:43:04 > 0:43:08The Archers is the longest-running radio soap opera in the world.
0:43:08 > 0:43:12And perhaps the reason for its continuing popularity is not
0:43:12 > 0:43:16the occasionally sensational introduction of modernity
0:43:16 > 0:43:19into Ambridge in the shape of drug abuse or gay marriage,
0:43:19 > 0:43:22but precisely the reverse.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26Because Ambridge is still a reassuringly cohesive rural
0:43:26 > 0:43:30community, which gets together at the pub - at The Bull -
0:43:30 > 0:43:35in church - at St Stephen's - or in Linda Snell's Christmas pantomimes.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38This is still a place where the passing of the year
0:43:38 > 0:43:43is marked by the seasons, and where the flower and produce show
0:43:43 > 0:43:45is still at the centre of village life.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49Although The Archers was originally aimed at farmers, the
0:43:49 > 0:43:54BBC always wanted to appeal to what it quaintly called "the townsman".
0:43:54 > 0:43:59So, six times a week, the countryside re-colonises the city
0:43:59 > 0:44:01through the medium of radio.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05And the noise and the hubbub of the traffic is replaced
0:44:05 > 0:44:10by the calming bleat of sheep, and the comforting lowing of cattle.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21In the early days, The Archers showcased bigger fields,
0:44:21 > 0:44:24labour-saving machines and more chemicals.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29What happened in Borsetshire happened in real counties
0:44:29 > 0:44:30up and down the land.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34Hedgerows were grubbed up. Ancient woodlands were chopped down.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40By the 1960s, people began to fear that the countryside
0:44:40 > 0:44:42had changed too much.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47This was when the word "environment" acquired a new meaning -
0:44:47 > 0:44:51no longer something which was all around us,
0:44:51 > 0:44:54but something fragile, which might disappear for good.
0:45:06 > 0:45:12In the early 1970s, a government committee was set up to investigate
0:45:12 > 0:45:15the relationship between man and the environment.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20The great and the good who sat on the committee
0:45:20 > 0:45:24decided they wanted some poetry to preface their report.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27So they commissioned Hull-based poet Philip Larkin
0:45:27 > 0:45:29to write something suitably elevating.
0:45:31 > 0:45:35If they were hoping for a bland official statement in verse,
0:45:35 > 0:45:37they'd come to the wrong man.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39What did he look like?
0:45:39 > 0:45:40Eric Morecombe.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42HE LAUGHS
0:45:42 > 0:45:45Balding, big glasses, but without that twinkle
0:45:45 > 0:45:47and that grin that Morecombe had.
0:45:47 > 0:45:49So, a sort of deadpan version?
0:45:49 > 0:45:51Absolutely.
0:45:51 > 0:45:55In person, Larkin was quite rooted in "olden days", wasn't he?
0:45:55 > 0:45:57He certainly was.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00I mean, you know, he was a tweed jacket man, he wore a tie,
0:46:00 > 0:46:04he liked traditional jazz, he didn't like rock music.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08The public persona was very "olden days" when every now and then there
0:46:08 > 0:46:12were television programmes made about him, and he did absolutely sort
0:46:12 > 0:46:17of project this image of, you know, the slightly curmudgeonly old gent.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27Larkin had moved to Hull to work as a university librarian.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32What attracted him to the city was its isolation,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35its end-of-the-line feel.
0:46:35 > 0:46:40He wrote, "Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth."
0:46:40 > 0:46:44His poetry is both melancholic and truthful.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47So, the poem he wrote as a preface to the government report -
0:46:47 > 0:46:50which he later called Going, Going -
0:46:50 > 0:46:52is a sort of fierce elegy,
0:46:52 > 0:46:57a grumpy lament for the destruction of the English countryside.
0:47:17 > 0:47:18"I knew there'd be false alarms
0:47:18 > 0:47:20"In the papers about old streets
0:47:20 > 0:47:23"And split-level shopping, but some
0:47:23 > 0:47:25"Have always been left so far
0:47:25 > 0:47:27"And when the old part retreats
0:47:27 > 0:47:29"As the bleak high-risers come
0:47:29 > 0:47:32"We can always escape in the car."
0:47:36 > 0:47:41The central image of the poem is that England, this valuable,
0:47:41 > 0:47:45ancient thing - the English countryside - is being auctioned
0:47:45 > 0:47:49off, going, going, and it will be gone, sold to the highest bidder.
0:47:49 > 0:47:53That sense of the countryside as something that's been there
0:47:53 > 0:47:56since time immemorial, that we've imagined will always be there.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00But now, suddenly, he's imagining, what will England be like
0:48:00 > 0:48:01when the countryside is gone?
0:48:03 > 0:48:06There's a great moment in the poem where he said,
0:48:06 > 0:48:09we've always assumed that the earth can take it,
0:48:09 > 0:48:12that, whatever we do, the earth, the sea will endure.
0:48:12 > 0:48:15But now, all of a sudden, he's thinking, whoa, too much.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24Larkin loved graveyards.
0:48:24 > 0:48:28He was a man who liked to dwell on his own mortality.
0:48:28 > 0:48:33Unsurprisingly, perhaps, his meditation on the destruction
0:48:33 > 0:48:35of the countryside in Going, Going
0:48:35 > 0:48:38led him to ponder extinction of a more personal kind.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46In the middle of the poem, Larkin asks a question which goes
0:48:46 > 0:48:49to the heart of our relationship with the past and the present.
0:48:49 > 0:48:52"What do I feel now?" he wonders.
0:48:52 > 0:48:54"Doubt, or age, simply?
0:48:54 > 0:48:57"The crowd is young in the M1 cafe".
0:48:57 > 0:49:02He's essentially examining his own responses - is the country
0:49:02 > 0:49:05really going to the dogs, or am I just getting old?
0:49:05 > 0:49:09It's typically honest, and, in its gloomy way, rather profound,
0:49:09 > 0:49:13because what he's suggesting is that our nostalgic yearning
0:49:13 > 0:49:18for an unspoilt rural past has less to do with what's going on out there
0:49:18 > 0:49:23in the farms and the fields, and more to do with what's going on
0:49:23 > 0:49:27in here, with our own insecurities and fragile sense of self.
0:49:33 > 0:49:36What we are frightened of, he seems to be saying,
0:49:36 > 0:49:41is not just that the countryside is going, going, but that we are.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50"It seems, just now
0:49:50 > 0:49:53"To be happening so very fast
0:49:53 > 0:49:55"Despite all the land left free
0:49:55 > 0:49:58"For the first time I feel somehow
0:49:58 > 0:50:00"That it isn't going to last
0:50:00 > 0:50:02"That before I snuff it, the whole
0:50:02 > 0:50:04"Boiling will be bricked in
0:50:04 > 0:50:06"Except for the tourist parts
0:50:06 > 0:50:09"First slum of Europe: a role
0:50:09 > 0:50:11"It won't be so hard to win
0:50:11 > 0:50:13"With a cast of crooks and tarts
0:50:14 > 0:50:17"And that will be England gone
0:50:17 > 0:50:20"The shadows, the meadows, the lanes
0:50:20 > 0:50:23"The guildhalls, the carved choirs
0:50:24 > 0:50:28"There'll be books, it will linger on
0:50:28 > 0:50:30"In galleries, but all that remains
0:50:30 > 0:50:33"For us will be concrete and tyres."
0:50:41 > 0:50:45The government committee didn't like the poem's rude remarks
0:50:45 > 0:50:47about crooks and tarts,
0:50:47 > 0:50:52but its theme was hugely resonant in a new era of uncertainty.
0:50:54 > 0:50:58Post-war Britain had dreamt of a new Jerusalem,
0:50:58 > 0:51:02but this had turned into economic woe and social upheaval.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09People reacted to the unnerving scale of change,
0:51:09 > 0:51:12as they so often do, by reaching back into the past
0:51:12 > 0:51:16and clinging on to symbols of continuity and stability,
0:51:16 > 0:51:20however paradoxical those symbols might be.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24Take, for example, this great edifice here - the Headstone Viaduct
0:51:24 > 0:51:28in Monsal Dale in the heart of Derbyshire's Peak District.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31When Larkin was writing his poem, the railway line that used
0:51:31 > 0:51:35to go through this valley was closed down, yet there was
0:51:35 > 0:51:40a vociferous and successful campaign to preserve the viaduct.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43It's old and weathered-looking and seems venerable,
0:51:43 > 0:51:46and you can see it aroused affection.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49But when it was actually built 150 years ago,
0:51:49 > 0:51:51it was a completely different story.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54Then, Victorian conservationists
0:51:54 > 0:51:57turned it into a national cause celebre.
0:51:57 > 0:52:01They were incensed at the desecration of this rural idyll
0:52:01 > 0:52:04and the intrusion into it of what they saw
0:52:04 > 0:52:06as a symbol of hateful modernity.
0:52:09 > 0:52:14The most outspoken conservationist was the art critic John Ruskin.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19For Ruskin, the railway epitomised a brutalising age.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22It drove its way through the heart of ancient towns
0:52:22 > 0:52:24and blighted the countryside.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30In 1871, Ruskin wrote a furious diatribe against the building
0:52:30 > 0:52:32of the railway...
0:52:32 > 0:52:36"There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell,
0:52:36 > 0:52:39"once upon a time, divine as the Vale of Tempe."
0:52:39 > 0:52:43That was in ancient Greece, in the very, very "olden days".
0:52:43 > 0:52:46And apparently there you could see gods, like Pan
0:52:46 > 0:52:49and Apollo and the Muses. Anyway, Ruskin continues,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52"You enterprised a railroad through the valley,
0:52:52 > 0:52:54"you blasted its rocks away,
0:52:54 > 0:52:57"heaped thousands of tonnes of shale into its lovely stream.
0:52:57 > 0:53:00"The valley is gone, and the gods with it.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04"And now, every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour,
0:53:04 > 0:53:07"and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton,
0:53:07 > 0:53:11"which you think a lucrative process of exchange - you fools everywhere."
0:53:13 > 0:53:14Quite harsh.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26150 years on, the image of the viaduct has undergone
0:53:26 > 0:53:28a remarkable transformation.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34Now it's seen as a positive addition to the landscape -
0:53:34 > 0:53:37an "olden days" attraction in its own right.
0:53:44 > 0:53:48They reopened the tunnels a couple of years ago so that cyclists,
0:53:48 > 0:53:50horse riders and walkers could come through,
0:53:50 > 0:53:54and it makes for a terrific walk. And it's immensely popular.
0:53:54 > 0:53:55I mean, people come, you know,
0:53:55 > 0:53:58people come to the Peak District for all sorts of reasons,
0:53:58 > 0:54:01but this is a big draw. And in the summer, bank holidays,
0:54:01 > 0:54:03it's very...it's almost crowded.
0:54:03 > 0:54:04Why do you think people come?
0:54:04 > 0:54:07What are they getting out of seeing this?
0:54:07 > 0:54:09Well, it's just a fantastic walk.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11You go into the tunnel at the other side,
0:54:11 > 0:54:14you can't see the way out because it's curved, so it's a mystery.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17And you come out and, wow,
0:54:17 > 0:54:19we're on top of a bridge
0:54:19 > 0:54:21looking down on the river in this beautiful scenery.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24I mean, it's exciting, it's wonderful.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27When you look at this viaduct, it's quite pretty,
0:54:27 > 0:54:29but not very pretty, is it?
0:54:29 > 0:54:32Why do you think people have got so attached to it?
0:54:32 > 0:54:34Well, because they've got used to it being here.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37It's like the trees, it's part of the landscape.
0:54:37 > 0:54:42Now, you're a serious rambler, so, when people are walking,
0:54:42 > 0:54:45you take to the countryside, what is it you're looking for?
0:54:45 > 0:54:48You look around this landscape and it's not a wilderness,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51it's been used for hundreds and thousands of years.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54So what we're looking at is the sum total
0:54:54 > 0:54:56of people's use of this countryside.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59So, it's not natural, and this is just part of that use.
0:54:59 > 0:55:04But we've got Fin Cop up over there, which is a Neolithic site.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07And there's a weir in the river which was used for fishing.
0:55:07 > 0:55:08There's the farms over there.
0:55:08 > 0:55:11The limestone slopes, which are grazed,
0:55:11 > 0:55:15and that's what makes the wildlife so wonderful, the limestone flowers.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18And the footpaths that we use, of course.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21They're the routes that people used to use to get to work,
0:55:21 > 0:55:24to get to church, to get to school, to get to market.
0:55:24 > 0:55:29So, just the footpath's a part of the historical nature of the landscape.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31And that's what the charm is for me.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45If Ruskin's eyesore can become a rambler's delight,
0:55:45 > 0:55:48then who knows what modern monstrosities we may end up
0:55:48 > 0:55:52treasuring in the future - wind farms, perhaps.
0:55:52 > 0:55:53Even fracking sites.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59Despite the fact that it is constantly changing,
0:55:59 > 0:56:04the countryside has been for us a symbol of changelessness -
0:56:04 > 0:56:08a lost Arcadia, a lost childhood,
0:56:08 > 0:56:10a lost home.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20I grew up living abroad, frequently on the move with my mother
0:56:20 > 0:56:24and father, and the landscapes of my youth were exotic -
0:56:24 > 0:56:27Africa, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31But this, Sussex, is what we always thought of as home,
0:56:31 > 0:56:34which was odd, really, because my father came from Scotland
0:56:34 > 0:56:36and my mother from the Channel Islands.
0:56:36 > 0:56:40But they had decided to move here and buy a house,
0:56:40 > 0:56:43which we always kept as our link to Britain.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48We used to come up here to Devil's Dyke for picnics when I was a child.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55So this very gentle, very English countryside
0:56:55 > 0:56:58is a link to the past, not just for me, but for everyone,
0:56:58 > 0:57:01because they've recently turned it into a National Park.
0:57:01 > 0:57:06And that desire to conserve a much-loved area
0:57:06 > 0:57:10makes me realise again that the countryside in Britain is
0:57:10 > 0:57:14a sort of physical embodiment of the "olden days".
0:57:14 > 0:57:18It's a green portal through which we can go into a world
0:57:18 > 0:57:21which is somehow more peaceful, simpler and better
0:57:21 > 0:57:24than the complex one in which we actually live.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39'I chose the term "the olden days" for this series deliberately,
0:57:39 > 0:57:42'because it is often used pejoratively.
0:57:42 > 0:57:44- HE GROANS - "Oh, the olden days."
0:57:44 > 0:57:47'Dwelling on the past can be seen as a regressive
0:57:47 > 0:57:50'and slightly absurd national trait.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54'Nostalgia has been considered a British disease,
0:57:54 > 0:57:56'and we can be too easily caricatured
0:57:56 > 0:58:00'as a nation who would like to turn its entire history into a
0:58:00 > 0:58:02'series of commemorative tea towels.'
0:58:04 > 0:58:07But I think the "olden days" is better than that.
0:58:07 > 0:58:12Yes, the facts are a bit dodgy, and the great characters and traditions
0:58:12 > 0:58:17more or less invented, and the countryside over-sentimentalised.
0:58:17 > 0:58:22But the concept is still important, because, at the very least,
0:58:22 > 0:58:25it offers an escape from the confines of the present,
0:58:25 > 0:58:27which shouldn't be underestimated.
0:58:27 > 0:58:31And, at best, it gives us a way to use the past
0:58:31 > 0:58:35to criticise the present, and make the future better.
0:58:35 > 0:58:37So, if we are very lucky,
0:58:37 > 0:58:39in a couple of hundred years,
0:58:39 > 0:58:43someone will look back at us, and find something of merit
0:58:43 > 0:58:44in what we've done,
0:58:44 > 0:58:49and will call our times the "olden days".