Metro-land (TV)
Encyclopedia
Metro-land is a BBC
documentary film written and narrated by the then Poet Laureate
Sir John Betjeman
. It was directed by Edward Mirzoeff
and first broadcast in colour on February 26, 1973. The film celebrates suburban life in the area to the north-west of London
that grew up in the early 20th century around the Metropolitan Railway
(later the Metropolitan Line of the Underground
).
"Metro-land
" was the slogan coined by the railway for promotional purposes in about 1915 and used as such for about twenty years, until shortly after the incorporation of the Metropolitan into the London Passenger Transport Board
in 1933. As Betjeman himself put it at the beginning of Metro-land, "Child of the First War, forgotten by the Second".
The film was critically acclaimed and fondly remembered today. A DVD
was released in 2006 to coincide with the centenary of Betjeman's birth.
. The two had recently collaborated on a BBC series called Bird's Eye View, which offered an aerial vision of Britain. Metro-land was commissioned by Robin Scott
, Controller of BBC Two
, with the initial working title of "The Joys of Urban Living". As completed, it was a series of vignettes of life in the suburbs of Metro-land, drawn together by Betjeman’s commentary, partly in verse, whose text was published in 1978, and inter-woven with black and white film shot from a Metropolitan train in 1910. It was 49 minutes long.
Betjeman's first appearance in Metro-land is over a pint of beer in a station buffet, reminiscent of the film Brief Encounter
(1945). This sequence was filmed at Horsted Keynes
, on the Bluebell Railway
in Sussex.
Other locations include:
wrote to Mirzoeff that it was "just about the most satisfying TV programme, on all levels, that I've ever seen". Clive James
, writing in the Observer, dubbed it an "instant classic" and predicted accurately that “they’ll be repeating it until the millennium”. (In 2006 it was shown on BBC Four
in the same week that the DVD was released.) Christopher Booker
rated it as the best of Betjeman's television programmes ("Like others, I have been endlessly grateful … over the years for the more public activities of the 'outer' Betjeman"), while Betjeman’s biographer A. N. Wilson
recalled that it was "too good to be described simply as a ‘programme’".
In a contemporaneous review for the London
Evening Standard
, Simon Jenkins
launched into imitative verse: “For an hour he held enraptured/Pinner, Moor Park, Chorley Wood./’Well I’m blowed’ they said, ‘He likes us./Knew one day that someone should.”
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary film written and narrated by the then Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
Sir John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
. It was directed by Edward Mirzoeff
Edward Mirzoeff
Edward Mirzoeff CVO, CBE is a prominent British television producer and documentary filmmaker.-Early life:He went to Hasmonean Grammar School in Hendon...
and first broadcast in colour on February 26, 1973. The film celebrates suburban life in the area to the north-west of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
that grew up in the early 20th century around the Metropolitan Railway
Metropolitan railway
Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...
(later the Metropolitan Line of the Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
).
"Metro-land
Metro-land
Metro-land is a name given to the suburban areas that were built to the north west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the 20th century, and were served by the Metropolitan Railway, an independent company until absorbed by the London...
" was the slogan coined by the railway for promotional purposes in about 1915 and used as such for about twenty years, until shortly after the incorporation of the Metropolitan into the London Passenger Transport Board
London Passenger Transport Board
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport in London, UK, and its environs from 1933 to 1948...
in 1933. As Betjeman himself put it at the beginning of Metro-land, "Child of the First War, forgotten by the Second".
The film was critically acclaimed and fondly remembered today. A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released in 2006 to coincide with the centenary of Betjeman's birth.
The concept
According to Mirzoeff the programme was conceived in 1971 over lunch with Betjeman at Wheeler's restaurant in SohoSoho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
. The two had recently collaborated on a BBC series called Bird's Eye View, which offered an aerial vision of Britain. Metro-land was commissioned by Robin Scott
Robin Scott (BBC)
Robin Scott was a BBC controller, the launch controller of BBC Radio 1 in 1967, and of BBC2 television from 1969 to 1974.-Early career:...
, Controller of BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, with the initial working title of "The Joys of Urban Living". As completed, it was a series of vignettes of life in the suburbs of Metro-land, drawn together by Betjeman’s commentary, partly in verse, whose text was published in 1978, and inter-woven with black and white film shot from a Metropolitan train in 1910. It was 49 minutes long.
Locations in Metro-land
Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...
(1945). This sequence was filmed at Horsted Keynes
Horsted Keynes
Horsted Keynes is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The village is located about eight kilometres north east of Haywards Heath, in the Weald...
, on the Bluebell Railway
Bluebell Railway
The Bluebell Railway is a heritage line running for nine miles along the border between East and West Sussex, England. Steam trains are operated between and , with an intermediate station at .The railway is managed and run largely by volunteers...
in Sussex.
Other locations include:
- Chiltern Court, over Baker StreetBaker StreetBaker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid the street out in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who lived at a fictional 221B...
station, the Metropolitan’s London terminus, which still contained a restaurant in 1972 (the year of filming); - Marlborough RoadMarlborough Road tube stationMarlborough Road is a disused London Underground station. It was opened in 1868 on the Metropolitan & St. John's Wood Railway, the first northward branch extension from Baker Street of the Metropolitan Railway...
, a station closed in 1939, whose booking hall had become an Angus Steak House; - St John's WoodSt John's WoodSt John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...
: surprisingly, perhaps, there was no mention of Lord's Cricket GroundLord's Cricket GroundLord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
, part of which had to be dug up in the 1890s to facilitate tunnelling for the Great Central RailwayGreat Central RailwayThe Great Central Railway was a railway company in England which came into being when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension . On 1 January 1923, it was grouped into the London and North Eastern...
into Marylebone. Instead, Betjeman concentrated on St John’s Wood as a Victorian suburb and, in particular, the former residence of a clergyman, John Hugh Smyth-Pigotthttp://flickr.com/photos/wickers_poet/sets/72157601423744397, "whose Clapton congregation declared him to be Christ,/a compliment he accepted". This house has since been the home of both Charles SaatchiCharles SaatchiCharles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
and Vanessa FeltzVanessa FeltzVanessa Jane Feltz is an English television personality, broadcaster and journalist. She currently presents an early morning radio show on BBC Radio 2, a mid morning phone-in show on BBC London 94.9. In 2011, she started hosting The Vanessa Show on Channel 5. The first series ended on June 24th...
; - NeasdenNeasdenNeasden is an area in northwest London, UK. It forms part of the London Borough of Brent.-History:The area was recorded as Neasdun in 939 AD and the name is derived from the Old English nēos = 'nose' and dūn = 'hill'. It means 'the nose-shaped hill' referring to a well-defined landmark of this area...
, caricatured since 1962 by the satirical magazine, Private EyePrivate EyePrivate Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
, for which Betjeman wrote, as the stereotypical "contemporary urban environment". Betjeman describes Neasden as "home of the gnome and the average citizen" (the former a reference to the preponderance of gnome statuettes in suburban front-gardens, but possibly also a nod in the direction of the Eye’s fictional proprietor, Lord Gnome). Background music was provided by William RushtonWillie RushtonWilliam George Rushton, commonly known as Willie Rushton was an English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer who co-founded the Private Eye satirical magazine.- School and army :William George Rushton was born 18 August 1937 in the family home at Scarsdale Villas,...
’s recording of Neasden (1972) ("Neasden/You won't be sorry that you breezed in"), another Private Eye spin-off. Betjeman visits the Neasden Nature Trail, where he met its creator, the ornithologist Eric Simms; - WembleyWembleyWembley is an area of northwest London, England, and part of the London Borough of Brent. It is home to the famous Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena...
, site of the British Empire ExhibitionBritish Empire ExhibitionThe British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley, Middlesex in 1924 and 1925.-History:It was opened by King George V on St George's Day, 23 April 1924. The British Empire contained 58 countries at that time, and only Gambia and Gibraltar did not take part...
in 1924-5 and the stadium (demolished and re-built in the early 21st century), which first hosted the Football Association Cup FinalFA CupThe Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
in 1923 and where England had won the World Cup six years before Metro-land was filmed. (Chants of "England!" could be heard in the background as Betjeman stood alone on the hallowed turf.) Betjeman recounted the partial construction on the site of the present stadium of "Watkin's FollyWatkins' TowerWatkin's Tower was a partially completed building in London, England, UK. It was marketed as the "Great Tower of London".- Names :Numerous names were given to the tower during its planning, construction and legacy...
" (after Sir Edwin Watkin, Chairman of the Metropolitan), demolished in 1907, which had been intended to rival the Eiffel TowerEiffel TowerThe Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
in Paris; - HarrowLondon Borough of HarrowThe London Borough of Harrow is a London borough of north-west London. It borders Hertfordshire to the north and other London boroughs: Hillingdon to the west, Ealing to the south, Brent to the south-east and Barnet to the east.-History:...
: Harrow SchoolHarrow SchoolHarrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
and Grim's Dyke, Harrow WealdGrim's DykeGrim's Dyke is the name of a house and estate located in Harrow Weald, in Northwest London, England, built in 1872 by Norman Shaw, and named after the nearby pre-historic earthwork known as Grim's Ditch. The house is best known as the home of dramatist W.S. Gilbert, who lived there for the last...
, where, in 1911, the lyricist W.S.Gilbert, collaborator of Arthur SullivanArthur SullivanSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, drowned in a pond from a heart attack. Betjeman recounts that Gilbert had gone swimming with two girls, Ruby Preece and Winifred Isabel Emery; Ruby later became known as the artist Patricia PreecePatricia PreecePatricia Preece , born Ruby Vivian Preece, was an English artist associated with the Bloomsbury Group and the second wife of painter Stanley Spencer, for whom she modelled. As a teenager, Preece was involved in the death of dramatist W. S. Gilbert...
, who was the second wife of Stanley SpencerStanley SpencerSir Stanley Spencer was an English painter. Much of his work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to Crucifixion, happening not in the Holy Land but in the small Thames-side village where he was born and spent most of his life...
; - PinnerPinner- Climate :Pinner's geographical position on the far western side of North West London makes it the furthest London suburb from any UK coastline. Hence the lower prevalence of moderating maritime influences make Pinner noticeably warmer in the spring and the summer compared to the rest of the capital...
: Pinner Fair, described by Betjeman as "a mediaeval fair in Metro-land"; - Moor ParkMoor Park (house)Moor Park is a Grade I listed Palladian mansion set within several hundred acres of parkland in Hertfordshire, England. It is called Moor Park Mansion because it is in the old park of the Manor of More. The original house was built in 1678–9 for James, Duke of Monmouth, and inherited by his...
RickmansworthRickmansworthRickmansworth is a town in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire, England, 4¼ miles west of Watford.The town has a population of around 15,000 people and lies on the Grand Union Canal and the River Colne, at the northern end of the Colne Valley regional park.Rickmansworth is a small town in...
, on whose golf course Betjeman was filmed missing a tee shot. The fine club-house, an 18th century mansion, was also shown. 34 years later, the Mail on Sunday recalled Betjeman's "hilarious" round, noting that many of the houses in private roads around Moor Park stationMoor Park tube stationMoor Park is a London Underground station in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire. The station is outside the Greater London boundary but is in both Zone 6 and Zone 7....
were now owned by Indian businessmen. Accordingly, it dubbed one road in Moor Park, "BollywoodBollywoodBollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
Boulevard of Suburbia"; - Croxley GreenCroxley GreenCroxley Green is a small town and civil parish of approximately 5,000 dwellings and 12,000 residents located between Watford and Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, England...
: with a hint of irony, Betjeman refers to the Croxley Green "revels" as "a tradition dating back to 1952"; - ChorleywoodChorleywoodChorleywood is a village and civil parish in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. It had a population of 6,814 people at the 2001 census. The parish of Chorleywood as a whole has a population of 10,775. The town lies in the far south west of Hertfordshire, on the...
, which Betjeman called "essential Metro-land". He visits The Orchard, an Arts and craftsArts and craftsArts and crafts comprise a whole host of activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's hands and skill. These can be sub-divided into handicrafts or "traditional crafts" and "the rest"...
house (1899) designed by Charles VoyseyCharles VoyseyCharles Voysey may refer to:* Charles Voysey * Charles Voysey * Charles Cowles-Voysey , architect and son of the above...
(1857-1941), about whom he had written an article in the Architectural Review in 1931. Elsewhere in Chorleywood, Betjeman listened to a local resident, Len Rawle, perform on the WurlitzerWurlitzerThe Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....
organ from the Empire cinema, Leicester SquareLeicester SquareLeicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
, which had been installed in his house. (In 2006 the organ was still there and Rawle performed for a BBC film, Betjeman and Me, made by Dan CruickshankDan CruickshankDan Cruickshank is an art historian and BBC television presenter.-Early life:As a young child he lived for some years in Poland...
to mark Betjeman’s centenary); - AmershamAmershamAmersham is a market town and civil parish within Chiltern district in Buckinghamshire, England, 27 miles north west of London, in the Chiltern Hills. It is part of the London commuter belt....
, the terminus of the Metropolitan by 1973, where Betjeman visited High and Over (1929), a house designed by Amyas ConnellAmyas ConnellAmyas Douglas Connell was a highly influential New Zealand architect of the mid-twentieth century. He achieved early and conspicuous success as a student, winning the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1926...
in the moderneModerneModerne may refer to:* Moderne architecture, also sometimes referred to as "Style Moderne" or simply "Modern", a more general term for a style of architecture that became popular in 1925 and was described in the 1960s as "Art Deco"...
style ("perhaps old-fashioned today") that overlooked the town. (Thirty years earlier he had referred, rather contemptuously, to "an absurd admiration of what is modern, as though 'modern' meant always a flat roof, a window at the corner ... in fact not genuine contemporary architecture at all but 'jazz'" ). Of the former Metropolitan beyond Amersham, Betjeman remarked, "In those wet fields the railway didn't pay/The Metro stops at Amersham today";
- Quainton RoadQuainton Road railway stationQuainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in undeveloped countryside near Quainton, Buckinghamshire, from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd Duke of Buckingham to route the railway near his home at Wotton House and to open a...
, a station in the outer reaches of BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
that was finally closed to Metropolitan passengers in 1948, but has since become home to the Buckinghamshire Railway CentreBuckinghamshire Railway CentreBuckinghamshire Railway Centre is a railway museum operated by the Quainton Railway Society Ltd. at Quainton Road railway station, in the far depths of "Metro-land", about 5 miles west of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The site is divided into two halves which are joined by two foot-bridges, one of...
. Betjeman reminisced of having sat there in the autumn of 1929 watching the BrillBrill TramwayThe Brill Tramway, also known as the Quainton Tramway, Wotton Tramway, Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad and Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch, was a six-mile rail line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England...
tram depart. In 2006 his daughter Candida Lycett GreenCandida Lycett GreenCandida Lycett Green is the author of sixteen books including English Cottages, Goodbye London, The Perfect English House, Over the Hills and Far Away and The Dangerous Edge of Things. Her television documentaries include “The Englishwoman and the Horse” and “The Front Garden”...
organised an excursion from Marylebone to Quainton Road, using the extant freight line from AylesburyAylesbury railway stationAylesbury railway station is a railway station in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England and is a major stop on the London to Aylesbury Line from Marylebone station via Amersham. It is 37.75 miles from Aylesbury Station to Marylebone Station...
, to mark his centenary; - , near to the ClaydonsMiddle ClaydonMiddle Claydon is a village and also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located about five miles south of Buckingham and three miles west of Winslow....
, the most distant outpost of the Metropolitan, closed since 1936, which, by the 1970s, had largely been reclaimed by nature. Betjeman appeared to close the programme here with the words, "Grass triumphs. And I must say I’m rather glad", although the scene was in fact filmed at Shipton LeeShipton LeeShipton Lee is a hamlet in the parish of Quainton, in Buckinghamshire, England....
, some five miles to the south of the former terminus.
Critical acclaim
In general, Metro-land was warmly and favourably received. Miles KingtonMiles Kington
Miles Beresford Kington was a British journalist, musician and broadcaster.-Early life :...
wrote to Mirzoeff that it was "just about the most satisfying TV programme, on all levels, that I've ever seen". Clive James
Clive James
Clive James, AM is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism...
, writing in the Observer, dubbed it an "instant classic" and predicted accurately that “they’ll be repeating it until the millennium”. (In 2006 it was shown on BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
in the same week that the DVD was released.) Christopher Booker
Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it for over four decades. He has been a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990...
rated it as the best of Betjeman's television programmes ("Like others, I have been endlessly grateful … over the years for the more public activities of the 'outer' Betjeman"), while Betjeman’s biographer A. N. Wilson
A. N. Wilson
Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views...
recalled that it was "too good to be described simply as a ‘programme’".
In a contemporaneous review for the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
, Simon Jenkins
Simon Jenkins
Sir Simon David Jenkins is a British newspaper columnist and author, and since November 2008 has been chairman of the National Trust. He currently writes columns for both The Guardian and London's Evening Standard, and was previously a commentator for The Times, which he edited from 1990 to 1992...
launched into imitative verse: “For an hour he held enraptured/Pinner, Moor Park, Chorley Wood./’Well I’m blowed’ they said, ‘He likes us./Knew one day that someone should.”
External links
- Metro-land at the British Film InstituteBritish Film InstituteThe British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's ScreenonlineScreenonlineScreenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...