BBC2 9pm Tue 18th, good TV at last

[Anonymous]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4916156.stm

The lost world of Friese-Greene, A chap that toured England in the 1920 filming in colour. Dan Cruckshank presents re-discovered film. I will be infront of the box with me bottle of srumpy J hopeing for some good TV after the recent drivel.

 

[Anonymous]

Dan is driving around in the original 30/98 (D-type) Vauxhall of Mr F-G I think - which should be interesting!


Vintage Vauhalls

 

[Anonymous]

Me too - lovely to see how things used to be ah me - I shall be watching with glass of red wine to hand - enjoy all!

 

[Anonymous]

Wonderful stuff! The balmy, yellow-line free lanes of pre-Prescottien England.

Did anyone else notice the distinctly layered courses of the thatch on that far cottage in the village early on (the two flappers were posing there I think)? I can’t say I have seen that particular style before; it was quite striking really and to my eye unusual.

If it is recognisable as a sort of vernacular technique, why hasn’t it been recreated – or has it and I’ve never noticed?

Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

I did enjoy this programme - makes you realise how much has been lost - hedgerows ,people who actually seemed to enjoy their lot whatever it was and lovely clear roads,and ploughing with horses! (mind you I actually can remember that.)

Just one thought occurs as I watch these programmes much as it did when Mitchell and Kenyon films were shown - Just about everyone is now dead ! makes you realise you are part of a continous line of people - they seem to have made less negative impact than we have on our surroundings.End of wistful moment......

 

[Anonymous]

Horses were always there, even for us townies. I had to visit my home town again only yesterday and I pointed out where my brothers and sister and I used to hang around the blacksmiths watching an old man shoe horses. It was just at the back of the market place in the town centre, but long gone now – today the entrance to a ‘mall’.

As a youngster (when not playing in the streets) I also enjoyed the freedom to trek far afield alone, to the Charnwoods, Hanging Stone Rocks or Thorpe Acre, to venture out to any of the outlying farms for the complete day. I sat on the lead of a relay team of six shires many a time as they pulled loaded drays up a hill near Dishley Mill. Sometimes exercised hunters for the lord of the manor at Whatton House and often, rode the horse drawn milk cart back home utterly spent (sometimes driven by a German PoW).

I remember dreaming on Meadow Lane bridge, as I marvelled at the sight of twenty sweating Suffolk Punches, straining as they hauled iron girders from Morrison’s to the railway yards. Seeing cobs pulling freight barges on the Grand Union Canal . . .

Ah, memories . .

That wasn’t so long ago really, well not to me! We haven’t left much of anything for future generations have we?

Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

Round my way the fields seem to be growing less barley and more horses these days. They don't actually do anything except give rich women excuses for driving very large cars.

 

[Anonymous]

There's a farm not far from us where horses are still used...


The Last Horseman

 

[Anonymous]

With the lack of forward planning the world governments are giving to the rapidly dwindling oil and gas supplies and there sluggish response to change there ways its not fiction to say that in the next 30 to 50 years the horse and cart could make a comeback out of neccesity driven buy high fuel costs both locally and internationally as global transport becomes uneconomical and unsustainable local economies will have to re-imerge, planes trains and lorries and cars are not sustainable, nor is a global economy without oil. But will we survive bird flu or global warming or terrorism to see a future. But perhaps its all part of the politics of fear.

The people in the old film footage were living in a golden period they had no clue about the gathering cloads over the future. We in comparison are in and perhaps at the end of a golden period of energy at the flick of a switch and the power to go anywhere with the turn of an ignition key.
Are the cloads gathering for us all? Lets hope we can learn from the past and build a sustainable future, I believe we can. Apple Ologies for the smpelling Im just a country boye.

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe we can’t go ‘back’ to the old ways per se, but I suppose some time in the future we will have to ‘reconsider’ some things a bit more carefully. More use of working horses perhaps and waterways, even the railways or ‘dirigibles’ and what’s wrong with ‘steam’?

I quite fancy the thought of chugging along under sat-nav guided remote control while the missus stokes the boiler!

Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

Just sitting here at work lin my head office in highly unrural Southampton - its great to read back all your views and Yes Evelyn the book The Last Horsemen looks great.

Couldn't agree more that we may find we have to return to Horse and Cart ,steam and waterways - this will improve the lot for birds and wildlife and perhaps teach us human idiots that we actually AREN't in control. I have this theory of whats wrong with people - I think its because most people largely can't view the stars anymore due to the sickly orange glow of streetlighting. My theory is - if you live somewhere you can still see the wonders of a starlight night , on looking at the beauty of it you gain a sense of how you are actually a small speck of something infinite and NOT the whole picture. But if you never see a sky full of starlight then..... you think you're the best thing on the planet ..... not good ......you get life out of all proportion.Anyway enough already of this dreaming back to the world of high finance.... oh Joy.

 

[Anonymous]

They do use hrses in some forestry areas where it is no longer economical or desirable to use heavy tree-chopping-down equipment (excuse the technical terms there).
I've seen horses hauling trees out of forestry in North Wales and isn't there a farmer who uses horses on his sloping fields?