The Great Outdoors

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Archive on 4: The Great Outdoors

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, The Great Outdoors

Matthew Sweet investigates the history of the Great Outdoors.

Matthew Sweet surveys the historical landscape of the Great Outdoors.

Matthew Sweet goes outside on an expedition to survey the history of the Great Outdoors.

Never has communing with nature been more celebrated. The cultural conversation is thick with soul-searching rainy walks, philosophical journeys in the company of birds, insects, and the taking of pleasure in a keenly observed scrubland. The idea that the outdoors is good for body and soul is one that permeates the 20th and 21st centuries, but for all the great beauty of nature writing and broadcasting this celebration of the natural world has its roots in often murkier ground.

There are BBC archive encounters with some of the most enrapturing broadcasters of the outdoors - Roger Deakin, Richard Mabey and Robert Macfarlane among others, the outdoors-man Horatio Clare who offers advice and guidance for the would-be rural rambler. The countryside has also been a battleground for political and cultural factions and the archaeologist David Petts shows him Heartbreak Hill, the site of a 1930s work camp in Cleveland set up to get unemployed ironstone miners back to the land. One of its driving forces was Rolf Gardiner, the rural revivalist and fundamentalist Morris dancer.

With Sandra Kerr, the folk singer and, in guise of Madeleine the rag doll, esteemed colleague of Bagpuss, Matthew explores how rural romanticism preoccupied the song collectors of the early 20th century and has his own Madeleine moment as he listens to her sing by a mill stream.

Advice on the right tools for the right job provided by Nuts in May (1976), BBC, Play for Today, BBC1 Directed and Devised by Mike Leigh with Roger Sloman as Keith and Alison Steadman as Candice Marie.

Presenter: Matthew Sweet
Producer: Natalie Steed
A Rhubarb Rhubarb production for BBC Radio 4

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