A land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contests of athletic youths and the laughter of comely maidens, whose firesides for the wisdom of serene old age.
I grew up in Ditchling. It was an idyllic village at the foot of the South Downs. In those days, the village was full of artists and sculptors.
Fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and - as George Orwell said - “old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist” and if we get our way - Shakespeare still read even in school.
Two things revolutionised life: moving to the countryside and falling in love.
Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky, a dream come true, I'll live there til I die.
When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold, Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold; When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!
Midsomer Murders' is more about character and atmosphere. It portrays a kind of idealised rural England, just as the French like to imagine it.
My dream is to become a farmer. Just a Bohemian guy pulling up his own sweet potatoes for dinner.
For a boy of ten, used to the coal bings and rust-coloured burns of Cowdenbeath, the fields and woodland of Kingswood, with its overgrown but stately avenue of copper-barked sequoias, felt like a local version of paradise.
It may be romantic to search for the salves of society's ills in slow-moving rustic surroundings, or among innocent, unspoiled provincials, if such exist, but it is a waste of time.
