Sign language

BBC Two Northern Ireland

BBC Four

Simulcast of network BBC Two in high definition.

BBC Two HD

BBC Two Scotland

Until 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales (analogue) was known simply as BBC Two Wales. BBC Two Wales (digital) was BBC 2W. From 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales schedules on both analogue and digital became identical

BBC Two Wales

BBC Two England

England

BBC Four HD

Ian Hislop

Archie Baron

Ashley Gething

Ian Hislop's Olden Days: Episode 3: Green Imagined Land

Documentaries

Green Imagined Land

Episode 3

Episode 3: Green Imagined Land

Ian Hislop's Olden Days

BBC Two - Ian Hislop's Olden Days, Green Imagined Land

Ian Hislop looks at the rural olden days - Britain's idealised vision of the countryside.

Ian Hislop explores the British trait of obsession with the past. He looks at the rural olden days - Britain's idealised vision of the countryside.

Ian Hislop explores the rural olden days - an idealised vision of the countryside - in this concluding film of his series exploring Britain's obsession with the past.  

Despite an overwhelmingly urban existence over the last 150 years, the British have increasingly looked to the supposedly timeless, unchanging countryside. It has inspired some of Britain's greatest writers and painters, and been just as influential in popular culture. It's no accident, Ian believes, that one of the most successful First World War recruitment posters used in British cities was of thatched cottages and rolling hills - with its slogan 'Isn't this worth fighting for?'.

Ian begins by looking at the emergence of a rural fantasia in the hugely popular, excessively sentimental works of the Victorian watercolourist Myles Birket Foster. He discovers how the musician Cecil Sharp kickstarted the revival of folk music and dance in the early 20th century and how morris dancing was used to rehabilitate soldiers on the Western Front.

Between the wars, swathes of the English countryside were built over, including Sarehole, a village just outside Birmingham and childhood home to JRR Tolkien. Tolkien immortalised the struggle between a rural arcadia (the Shire) and an industrial dystopia (Mordor) in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

After 1945, Britain briefly turned its back on the rural olden days and looked to the future. Even the countryside had to be modernised, so the BBC created The Archers to promote the latest agricultural techniques. But as Archers actress Tamsin Greig tells Ian, it is now most loved for celebrating the things - like a sense of community - we feel we have lost.

Loss, Ian shows, dominates Britain's relationship with the countryside. Philip Larkin's 1972 poem Going, Going suggests our fears for its demise actually reflect our own sense of mortality. It is a theme Ian considers in Larkin's Hull and in his own childhood haven, the Sussex Downs.    

To conclude, Ian reflects on the irony that some of Britain's most cherished landmarks from the olden days were once reviled. Victorian critic John Ruskin led a fierce campaign to halt the construction of the Headstone Viaduct in Monsal Dale. Today it is one of the highlights of the Peak District. Might we, Ian wonders, one day make heritage attractions of wind farms and fracking sites?

BBC Two

Knowledge, drama, comedy and the arts for a broad adult audience.

BBC Two is a lively channel of depth and substance, carrying a range of knowledge-building programming complemented by great drama, comedy and arts.

Factual: History

Ian Hislop explores how the British look to 'the olden days' to make sense of the present.

Ian Hislop explores the British obsession with the past. He reveals how and why, throughout our history, we have continually plundered 'the olden days' to make sense of and shape the present.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Ian Hislop's Olden Days

Episode 3: Green Imagined Land

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Series

BBC Two Northern Ireland

About BBC Two