|
Journey into the Weald of Kent was one of a pair of films released in 1959 as
parts of a series of travelogues named Our National Heritage, sponsored by the
oil company National Benzole. No further parts were released until 1962, when
the series broadened into a wider documentary approach.
The Our National Heritage banner was also used by National Benzole during the
1950s in press advertising and in a series of guide books on places and
activities. The temptation to exploit the double meaning of the phrase 'national
heritage' evidently proved more insistent than the need for a coherent programme
for its use.
Sir John Betjeman narrates this and its sister film in the series, Beauty In
Trust. Both films were made between Betjeman's collaborations for the BBC
Monitor series, 'John Betjeman: A Poet in London' (tx. 1/3/1959) and 'Journey
Into a Lost World' (tx. 28/2/1960).
The Our National Heritage films were closer in style to the series
Discovering Britain with John Betjeman he had made earlier in the decade. Those
short films were designed to encourage motorists to visit various British
stately homes, gardens, historic monuments and sites of interest. Where the
Discovering Britain films had been travelogues made for one oil company (Shell),
the Our National Heritage films were travelogues for another (National Benzole).
National Benzole was, in fact, an acquisition of Shell-Mex and BP Limited, a
merged marketing organisation of the companies we now know as Shell and BP. This
tends to suggest that these later films are another legacy of Betjeman's earlier
employment in the Shell publicity department.
The film itself is a characteristic Betjeman paean for the value of tradition
over senseless modernity, which is matched by the romanticisms of its musical
score. The music is by Elisabeth Lutyens, scored in the Vaughan Williams-esque
style of the British pastoral school which she herself described witheringly as
"cow-pat music".
James Piers Taylor
| 
Complete film (21:53)
