A series of outstanding and memorable programmes to mark 40 years of BBCtv

To mark Sir John Betjeman's 70th birthday this week, another chance to see the Poet Laureate's most highly-acclaimed film, his celebration of suburbia, Metro-Land.
'Live in Metro-Land' was the slogan in the 1920s and 1930s. It meant buying a new detached or semi-detached house in the desirable residential suburbs built up alongside the Metropolitan Railway. In this film Sir John Betjeman travels through Metro-Land.
(Poetry Prom with Sir John Betjeman: tomorrow 8.0 pm Radio 4)

Edward Mirzoeff remembers Metro-land.
Metro-Land, hailed in 1973 as an 'instant classic', found Sir John Betjeman taking a sentimental journey along the Metropolitan Line and looking at the suburbia that had sprung up by its side. Producer Edward Mirzoeff recalls: 'It grew out of a series l had done with Sir John called Bird's-Eye View - a helicopter view of Britain. After that, as a change from the sort of pretty, landscape side of the country, we both wanted to do something about the pleasures of suburbia. I eventually came up with the idea of examining 'Metro-Land' - the growth of suburbia linked to a tour of the line. 'Our greatest piece of good fortune came from London Transport who found a marvellous old film which had been shot along the line about 1910, just before the buildings started going up at the side of the track. We mixed the old film with our new film throughout. Sir John wrote the programme almost entirely in verse and we discovered some fascinating oddities along the way, like the man who had his house built around a Wurlitzer organ and a chap in Neasden with a suburban nature trail. We went in search of the Englishness of England. It was a programme about front gardens and back gardens and proof that suburbia was not just boring rows of box-like houses.'
(Interview: David Gillard)