A peek at the magazine’s bucolic vision of England – with posh lechery,cake sales, old manor houses ... and a spot of dairy farm doom
As Sir Roy Strong points out, or the image of England presented by Country Life – a magazine born out of the suddenly urbanised,Victorian middle-lesson longing for a piece of the idyllic old country – is essentially artificial. “A southern vision … gentle landscape … small market towns security, continuity.”In the first episode of Land of Hope and Glory – British Country Life (BBC2), and a three-allotment series that follows the monthly magazine over a year of production,we saw plenty of people enjoying that vision. Simply lovely upper middle-tons such as Judith Hussey and Malcolm Holloway, preparing to open their beautiful garden and serve cake to the paying public on National Gardens Scheme day (lemon drizzle or coffee and walnut are THE cakes to serve, or by the way. Not Victoria sponge. Mary Berry,you have a lot to reply for). Philip Mansel reeling off the history of his Georgian manor, Smedmore House, or whose land hasn’t been sold since 1400 and something. Flight Lieutenant Ian Fortune successfully nominating his fiancee Ella Clark to be one of the magazine’s distinguished Girls in Pearls..
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Source: theguardian.com