This post was done in two or three stages as I have not previously tried placing embedded (HTML) code directly into a blog (my blog) that ultimately facilitates a direct link to an actual BBC (or any TV) programme. I am always worried about either copyright infringement and/or accidentally libelling someone (which I emphasise if it ever happened it would be quite accidental). It seems to me, however, that this BBC FOUR programme (not sure when it was broadcast) is available to link to without 'Aunty Beeb' getting upset - so I have managed to successfully embed the necessary code to make this work. Because of the latest sophistication and integration amongst providers of online material (e.g. videos etc.) generally there is a share button and then a Blogger button making a share easy but exactly that method of sharing was not available with this BBC programme - so I had to experiment a bit.
To me, whenever I think of our former Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman (SJB) I always think of Metroland and his - well as I type - I am about to make a fool of myself for not doing my research here before authoring - was it a poem (I will check after posting)? Certainly I remember his wonderful broadcast about Metroland and it now appears that BBC FOUR has embellished and made into a new(ish) programme. In the film the words "1972" are mentioned but clearly it was only in the last couple of years (this year being 2018) that BBC FOUR released this enhanced broadcast.
A 'side-swipe' here:
Unfortunately I have to place a few sentences about my state of mind whilst typing/writing ...
Two days ago I had a steroid injection to help my long present frozen shoulder and I have held-off from taking pain killer tablets to see if I can get by and/or if pain generally has lessened and has become bearable and that I can sleep. Tonight (I am typing at 4 a.m.) I could not sleep - well only for short periods as the pain was getting worse. I decided I had to give in. Why? about two years ago I had two visits to A & E in Louth Hospital (well the 24 hour urgent care centre) and it was a dreadful experience for me and for my wife. It didn't have anything to do with my present health problem - it was that my neck completely locked-up and I could not move it and any movement - e.g. a pothole bump en route to the hospital was absolute agony - so our normal forty minute journey to Louth took one and a half hours and upon arrival I could not get out of the car without assistance. The upshot of all this was that when this (neck) problem started I should have been prescribed very strong pain killing tablets to stop my neck going into spasm and it was not until some time after getting pain relief (Diazepan or whatever it is called) and after having a neck MRI that I discovered that I had two vertebrae in the upper back/lower neck that were (trying to think of the word ...) I will say - expanded or swollen or exploded or whatever (can't get words during last 48 hours since the injection). I'll add the right word when I find it *. Either way, tonight I started getting neck pain again - that is NOT negotiable - Neither of us (wife or I) can go through that again - so I have taken moderate pain killing pills - so my 'wordage' might be off a bit.
* "Bulging" was the word ... (8-9-18).
Back to Metroland:
As most people will realise it is about the Metropolitan underground (well largely over ground actually) line in north-west London that went (still does of course) from Baker Street station near Madame Tussauds in Central London to Amersham (and beyond to Aylesbury and rural Buckinghamshire etc. for some time). The whole enterprise - the line - tied-in with the development of swathes of housing (mostly 1930 to 1950s), often sumptuous housing for the comfortably-off and it was all on former farmland thus the whole nature of the area around the Metropolitan line was changed colossally.
Best I leave it to the film to tell the story, rather than me ...
I do, however, have to draw attention to some items within the film as, to me, with my style of humour (I was a great fan of Pete & Dud - if you don't know who or what they are - Google it and watch some of their sketches) some parts of this Metroland BBC FOUR documentary are hilarious (and I really am not sure if the documentary makers knew it was or not).
Here's some pointers and some sections to watch out for (the film is about three quarters of an hour long by the way):
SJB introduces a chap called Eric Simms (obviously a keen bird watcher) but where I grew-up and when I grew-up birds were still for watching but they didn't have any feathers as, you guessed it, they were ladies (as everyone of average or working class means in South London knew that birds were what us young men sought, so the use of binoculars for spotting women was amusing. Mr. Simms ("who keeps a sharp eye on what is going on") is unashamedly middle class and oblivious to any misinterpretations of his words - words like this:
In Gladstone Park ... “It’s a marvellous place for watching young birds” (he says with his binoculars to his eyes).
I just wonder what Pete & Dud (Peter Cooke and Dudley
Moore) might have made of that part of the film and how easily they might have
infused their humour, their ‘naughty’ humour into it. I know that my warped
sense of humour had me thinking … you see, to me, having been ‘dragged-up in Saf
Lundan' [South London] – birds were for 'chatting-up’ and anyone peering at them
through binoculars would have been
‘suspect’ or at least suspicious. To me, the gentleman with the ‘bins’
looks, as my grown-up children might today say, ‘pervy’.
He goes on to say that “he can pick birds up at a great
distance (on the allotments)” – this is killing me …
Maybe I'm the odd one here ... please note that although I refer to being dragged-up in South London (I exaggerate - I was well brought-up but I grew-up in what was then a fairly working class section (East Dulwich) of the posh Dulwich in South East London - goodness gracious I went to boarding school - Maggie Thatcher had a house in Dulwich blah blah blah ...
Mr Eric Simms (keeps a sharp eye on what is going on) in
Gladstone Park – “it’s a marvellous place for watching young birds” (he says
with his binoculars to his eyes.
DO WATCH carefully at about 31 minutes into the film when what appears to be a 'jobsworth dirty old man' is very much in the personal
space of the young girl driving the Ford Cortina (I think) followed by another girl in a Mini car who he sends back through the private estate in a manner very reminiscent to me of exactly how ex-forces security guards of the 1960s treated women or anyone who might be trying to subvert the little bit of authority vested in the person's role as a gate-keeper.
There's a sweet bit when 1972 gets mentioned by the 1971 'queen' crowning the new one
(at Croxley Green fair). Chorleywood gets a mention and that has memories for me as I went to boarding school not far away in Kings Langley and my first 'sort of' girlfriend lived in Chorleywood in Metroland and I half-remember her dad - A Mr. Diamond as I recall (I think he may have been a well-off Jewish gentleman - so I doubt I as a gentile would have had much chance to progress my association with his daughter anyway).
There is a mention, I have to admit of an architect and ironmongery designer a certain Mr. Voysey that I am embarrassed to say that I hadn't heard of him but you can 'check him out' here:
I loved hearing SJB saying “I’m fat I know” when he was drawing attention rather to his height and to low ceilings in the Voysey house - every so often little bits of SJB's humanity shone through in this film - it was great to see him smile showing the gap in his front teeth.
There's a fascinating bit towards the end of the film when an incredibly accomplished organist mimics (on his organ) a steam train pulling away from a station (with a blending-in visually of that).
I think SJB may suffer from my 'glass half-empty' syndrome (my wife says that's how I am - I am not so convinced though). I see (or hear) at the end of the film that SJB states:
"It's probably goodbye England".
That's so sad.
I'm sorry but this odd addition here is my oversight really - somewhere in the, I think, earlier part of the film was a mention of a religious sect (I think when SJB talks about St. John's Wood or thereabouts - apologies if I have got this mixed-up but if you hear mention of "Agopemony", the following link may be helpful:
Warning: The film that you are about to watch will keep rolling on into other films, one after the other, and nothing to do with Betjeman - I haven't yet worked out how to prevent this happening and I expect it is beyond my control anyway - so close the window after viewing the Betjeman film.
NOW TO THE FILM (at last) ...
NOW TO THE FILM (at last) ...
- Wasn't it wonderful?
If you want some more on SJB's poems concerning Metroland the following link is helpful but you can Google around yourself as there is all to be found on The Web anyway:
http://middlesexcountypress.com/?page_id=527
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