Robinsons Farm where I learned to ride was very similar in appearance and since I went there first in about 1955 I remember the setting very fondly. They had a wonderful duckpond with huge sunflowers bordering it, well huge to me at that time as I was a bit of a shrimp.
Up on the ridgeway area bordering Broxbourne and Hoddesdon was where I did a lot of exploring on my bicycle, a few years later and I remember those mysterious rusting collections of agricultural machinery which became so familiar.
Then much later, ten years or so, I lived and worked on a horse studfarm, the Hollingsworth Stud as it was then and so became more intimate with country life which I really enjoyed. Had I not been so over educated I might easily have settled down into an agrarian life. I even grew my own brussels sprouts, don't know why the program said they are hard to harvest I thought they were dead easy to pluck.
I always wonder how much actual work those three do as they have been in a number of similar programs set at different eras. Ruth and Peter seem to enjoy the work but realistically its probably just short bursts of play acting for the camera though they must learn some very useful stuff, how could some of it not rub off on them.
I know this sounds crazy and certainly is but I said to Tammy that one cannot help but wonder if the BBC isn't sort of preparing us for the possibility of these times/events returning? Unconsciously maybe but its Open University based educational programming and therefore possible that theres a motive behind this approach.
I've always been interested in traditional rural crafts and believe that a strong sense of community would be the best thing that could happen to reverse the current trend of isolation as people put more time into themselves and less and less into those in their immediate vicinity.
I said to Tammy and our neighbour Betty who is a shining example of what I'm talking about, if it wasn't for her and her family we'd have been really stuck out on our own, as I said that we ought to make an effort to befriend all of those in our little enclave or at least make the effort to suggest a community spirit maybe growing vegetables something positive, healthy and that encourages cooperation between families.
Apropos of this theme in a general sense, watching these videos makes me realize how vulnerable we English (okay British!) are. Our little island is reliant upon imports even more so now than during the war because the population has grown so much. I think that some of the tensions between ourselves and immigrants would be greatly reduced with more emphasis on working together.
If the shit ever hits the fan the way I fear it inevitably will, under the present circumstances it seems unlikely that everyone will pull together as they did when we were fighting for our lives.
Over the past couple of months I've been saturating myself on just about every aspect of the war years partly out of nostalgia as already mentioned but also out of a dawning understanding of just what was involved in that conflict, the remnants of which were all around me as I grew up.
Its like finally finding the picture needed to complete the jigsaw puzzle! Very informative and fascinating albeit sometimes unsettling because one can see a similar pattern emerging now.
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