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"Oh to be in England now the April is there !"
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 10:03 am
by Willy
Happy Easter !
When I was at the Training College I studied the life of William Wordsworth. I will never forget his poem about the daffodils. "Oh to be in England now that April is there !". Today is Easter Sunday. I am at home. I am in the wrong place. I should be in England.
About ten years ago I was invited by my friend Brian Higbee on Easter Sunday. He still lived in Boughton Monchelsea near Maidstone. When I opened the window that morning the sun was shining, but the street was covered with a carpet of snow. I saw daffodils in the snow ! I heard the church bells in the distance. It gave a strange effect on me.
Next year I must do it. I must make a short film in which the Garden of England exudes an atmosphere of peace. A film with golden yellow flowers and with lamb playing in the meadows. A film not for a competition. Just to enjoy.
In a few weeks I will be in Chesterfield. In April. The daffodils will already be gone, but the bluebells will start to create a purple blue carpet in the woods.
Re: "Oh to be in England now the April is there !"
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 7:56 pm
by Pqtrick
Willy, don’t make me homesick!
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!!
It is actually Robert Browning but you can be forgiven for that! I really get the sentiment.
Today, Easter Sunday 2009 I live in France. In England we lived for sixteen years in the countryside with everything that was good. A poet’s corner, fields, squirrels the roaming fox and the spring flowers outside our window. And essentially, a good ‘boozer’ within walking distance or better still when my wife was the driver home! I miss all that!
We lived in a converted stable courtyard in the grounds of a manor house. We had to leave because it was sold and the lease expired, so we had to move away.
Now in France this Easter Day, we have dined with the family on roast lamb, made our way through two bottles of champagne, eaten chocolates and petite fours and watched the Paris-Roubix Cycle race on the TV. In the streets outside there is ‘not a cat about’ as sensibly the shops still close on Sundays.
In England this day, there will be traffic mayhem; shops are open for their busiest way. If you took a gentle walk in the park you would possibly get a can of lager, well one hitting you on the back of the head tossed by wayward youths.
What turns us Brits against this great country of ours? I did not leave England for this reason; I just notice these things when I go back.
Here, in France the young are told to learn the ‘langue de Shakespeare’. Yet alas this language of ours is left for the most part to be appreciated ‘par les étrangers’.
Make your film about daffodils, lambs bleating in the green fields and hear the sound of a pub’s swinging sign gently creaking in the breeze. And pop inside to just to sample a pint pulled with tender loving care!
Do it! Enjoy your film making in England – Joyeuse Pâques!
Re: "Oh to be in England now the April is there !"
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 8:32 pm
by Willy
PaddyW wrote:Willy, don’t make me homesick! ...
It is actually Robert Browning but you can be forgiven for that! I really get the sentiment...
Now in France this Easter Day, we have dined with the family on roast lamb, made our way through two bottles of champagne, eaten chocolates and petite fours and watched the Paris-Roubaix Cycle race on the TV...
Make your film about daffodils, lambs bleating in the green fields and hear the sound of a pub’s swinging sign gently creaking in the breeze. And pop inside to just to sample a pint pulled with tender loving care!
– Joyeuse Pâques!
Hello PaddyW. Many thanks for telling me. Yes, also Joy Prosser told me that Robert Browning yearned "Oh to be in England now that April's there". William Wordsworth wrote a beautiful poem about the daffodils :
I wandered Lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of Golden Daffodils
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze ...
Beautiful, isn't it ?
Me too, I worked on my film, but I also watched the "Paris-Roubaix" cycle race. Our former Belgian world champion Tom Boonen won the race. It was very exciting at the end, wasn't it ?
I also love some parts of France, but I prefer Britain and Scotland in particular. Also the small island of Sark, the Garden of England, Devonshire, the Yorkshire Dales, ... Oh, to be in Britain now that April's there !
Re: "Oh to be in England now the April is there !"
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:55 pm
by Dave Watterson
Darn it! Not only do I have to change the size of text Willy uses ... 
I also have to correct Paddy. 
Easter Sunday is almost the only day in the year when British shops do shut. Pubs and restaurants remain open.
But he is right to say most Brits do not value our language.
Perhaps it is appropriate that two people who like Britain, but live in other countries, should be struck by a poem called "Home Thoughts From Abroad" written by an Englishman living in Italy at the time.
Perhaps it is always true that we appreciate other places, more than we do the familiar ones.
We see oodles of holiday and travel films about exotic distant lands and few about our own home areas. There are some honourable exceptions, of course. Is it easier for us to be objective, to see with a fresh eye when we are out of our familiar surroundings?
Many people say they see the world differently through a camera lens. But many great still and cinema photographers give me the impression that they see the world in their own special ways and use the lens as a tool to capture their vision for the rest of us. I think of it as like the sculptor who sees his task as freeing a figure from the stone by chipping away the excess.
How does the world look to you and your lenses?
Dave
Re: "Oh to be in England now the April is there !"
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:41 pm
by ned c
News from yet another ex-pat. Yes, nostalgic times, for many years we lived in deepest Suffolk where my wife created a garden from an abandoned jungle and a piece of agricultural land, fortunately I filmed the whole creation. Now we live in the high semi-arid American SW, I look across the valley at a 10,000 foot range of mountains, the peaks still snowy. We are surrounded by pinion pines and junipers struggling for existence but I see a stand of daffodils that my wife has planted by the front door. Daffodils and cactuses, not quite what the poets had in mind!
At least we almost speak the local language and the natives are friendly.
ned c