I was born in 1947, it is so sad to know my children and their children will never know what a beautiful country I was brought up in, full of innocence.
this clip made me cry . I so love what our country looked like and how proud we were of it . it made us stand tall and upright and such a beautiful place it was . like I said you made me cry but thank you :)
Don't be sad. We've now got mosques and minarets on every street corner. Don't you prefer this to a rustic country churchyard? Surely everyone loves the cultural enrichment? And all those lovely gay marriages. Much more exciting than a boring man and woman marriage. All those Somalians. Don't you get turned on by the wonderful cosmopolitan aspect of racial integration?
Don't be sad everyone. We've now got mosques and minarets on every street corner. Don't you prefer this to a rustic country churchyard? Surely everyone loves the cultural enrichment? And all those lovely gay marriages. Much more exciting than a boring man and woman marriage. All those Somalians. Don't you get turned on by the wonderful cosmopolitan aspect of racial integration?
Ian Rivlin when the British Commonwealth dominated every Civilisation. What goes around comes around. Good and bad. Machines destroyed the Earth, man is addicted to Machines. Motor Cars AKA motor vehicles of mass destruction. People walked,,,now they exercise the feet on the accelerator of pollution vehicles. Speed is the problem.
@@josephhapp9 what are ridiculous argument? Politics has led to peoples lives being destroyed everywhere. We could also say say slavery started the decline of human life that Mesopotamia perhaps it is cultures that have checked population? Women think they’re very clever to have four wives and at least 15 children with each maybe that is what is destroying the planet otherwise we could all be sitting on her rears blaming the Ottoman Empire the Roman Empire the Viking invasion and slavery and look at how the Romans carved up this country and took our resources come now you and I both know, it is male domination of women and the way to make them subservient is to keep them pregnant and patch yourself on the back if somehow siring children is something to be proud of population growth has caused this distraction of the world
My parents were married in England during the same Summer of 1939, (as were many who could see what was on the horizon). Their Kodak Box Brownie camera was used to capture lovely black and white photos of those days in the sunshine, and somehow survive to this day in the form of a family photo album which accompanied the little family of four to Australia in 1952. But before the family blossomed, both parents went into the Armed Forces shortly after War was declared, only to meet again under trying circumstances a few times in England and Scotland until 1946 when my father was eventually "demobbed" in Burma and caught a troopship back to England. Thanks for these lovely colour photos which so wonderfully capture the essence of the county all those years ago. Several people in this Comments Section lament the loss of the English countryside with its peace and tranquillity, sounding quite brought to tears. However, as a regular viewer of many Narrowboating Channels on UA-cam, I'm quite up to date with the *present circumstances* prevailing along England's extensive Canals and Waterways, and express great admiration for those folk who live contented lives traversing the still extant countryside aboard their Narrowboats. Many others choose to picnic or simply walk or ride a bike along the towpaths to get similar experiences. _"Get out and about your beautiful country people"_ - there's enough still there to last your lifetime, if only you would switch off the Mainstream Media that assaults your senses.
This is beautiful and obviously from the heart. You don't have to be British/English to appreciate the very human sentiments associated with the video. Greensleeves/Vaughn Williams playing in the background does not hurt either :)
That beautiful country, gone forever. Thank you, I'm crying now for what has been taken from us. If there were some place far away where a new land could be created, I would create a land just like this now lost land. Thank you so very much.
@@nihilistcentraluk442 yeah--phantacists are just dreamer's. A word War destroyed this Britain, and uncontrolled immigration. Show me a European country that hasn't changed.
It's still there. I'm not sure if you've moved away from Britain, or just believe the unfortunate media headlines that tell you things have changed beyond help. But if you want to see the Britain in these pictures...it is still there.
@@edwardsills2664 oh no, it’s not. It is being concreted over as fast as it can be and the speed and pace is stepping up. I’m not sure if you actually ever really knew the countryside if you did how can you possibly say this?
ALOT of Britain still looks like this. You may be looking in the wrong places. I'm not sure the 30's were as good as it may be assumed, my grandfather spent SEVEN years unemployed,like millions of others, until he joined the army in 1937, and things only looked rosey if you were rich!
If you were upper class it was fantastic, but for lower classes it was very hard! And if you were gay, forget it, you'll be locked up.. And if you were poor and sick, sorry no doctor you have to pay.
As a retired photographer. Who enjoyed looking at the archive photographs at my old studio.during quite winter days. May I say your relative had a very good eye and captured the moment very well. You should be proud off their work.
My family emigrated to Australia in 1952 when I was 6 years old. My mother never did get to grips with the Australian landscape/climate and longed for the England so well captured in this delightful video. I have hd the opportunity to visit England on many occasions since that time and I understand the longing she felt. My family and I are Aussies who would not long to live anywhere else. Thank you for a great clip.
Hi Roy and thank you for your visit and interesting video. I grew up in England and loved the countryside, quaint villages and historic buildings. Now at 67, I choose to live in Laos and have done so for the past 12 years. I love this part of the world and the climate. I can't see me every settling back in the UK.
@@NigelFowlerSutton Gooday Nigel.I spent a fair amount of time in your part of the world unfortunately during the SE Asia conflict of the 60s-70s. I have several friends who reside permanently in a variety of spots about Thailand in particular. They will not return to Aus as they feel the same as yourself about Laos. Enjoy life mate.
@@kreznreich what medicine roads hospitals schools the railway structure that is still being used in India to this day education most of all and if we’re talking about colonisation what about the Ottoman colonisation that was pretty gross and brought nothing to the countries they just took
Truly evocative, poignant, especially as we know what horrors are about to be visited upon all those people, quietly going about their business. So grateful to the wonderful, social historians that had the foresight to capture these scenes, to preserve the moments in time. Thank you.
And my father fought in this war. Oh, how he would now turn in his grave to see what our once great England has become. I'm a grown man but cried when I saw our war memorials being desecrated this summer.
Once the most beautiful country on earth (still is imo) a true heaven. Now we have the dark side with drugs, hate and gangsta rap! This beautiful land will soon become a torn flag on the devil's horns.
@Motown Boy. Yes mate me n u share the same memories of our dads n grandads fighting and dying for WHAT!!!! For the UK to be the shithole it has become today 😢
UKstill had its problems all those years ago, it wasn’t problem free or crime free. It’s all relative so don’t look back through rose tinted spectacles because there were just as many problems facing us
@askiff1415 while I respectfully understand your point there, today I walk out into the street & Essex border town that I've lived all my life and also the town my adoption parents took cover in from Doodle-bugs aimed at the WW2 Enfield Arms ammunition factories, to bump into yet another street drugs deal, or to hear of another local knife crime or wonder if they'll be another road closure due to another armed incident. I can't help, but feel IT IS a lot worse here than ever before and that the beautiful fields 5 minutes from me, like the ones seen in this video, will be for, yet, an additional housing estate to be built to cover the London expansion 😥 It certainly leaves us older ones with a heavy heart.
This was so beautiful and unexpected, especially now the mess our country (UK) is in. Now people don't seem to care if their heritage is destroyed before their eyes. Isn't it worth preserving? Well I think it is!
Beautiful photography with the Fantasia on Greensleeves by Vaughan Williams. Wonderful journey to England before the war. Thank you for this marvellous post.
Thank you so very much for posting this. A time long gone, but definitely not forgotten, and one I was not born into - I popped into the world 18 years after WW2 ended. No graffiti. No mobile 'phones. No satellite dishes. No gaudily coloured cars with loud 'music' or silly exhausts. No designer labels on clothing... simply much less materialistic times... AND NO PLASTIC WASTE!
For me, it was 9 years after the conclusion of war. How life was so simple and uncluttered. Yet we knew how to enjoy ourselves. And as you know, we recycled and had paper carrier bags, returnable glass bottles....... ! Mind you, I love the internet and to be able to post videos like this...!
@@NigelFowlerSutton Some tech has its place, I agree, but I am worried about how obsessed some are with it. They are missing what is really around them; missing what is really important - the natural and real world. I remember collecting glass bottle from bins and taking them to my local shop for the refund. Paper carrier bags and greaseproof paper instead of plastic. Wax paper on loaves of bread that you could use for tracing things. Orange cellophane on glass Lucozace bottles - and Lucozade for when you were 'proper poorly' only. Elm trees and wildflowers in fields. Harvest mice and straw bales that you could build dens out of. Roads you could cycle on for miles without being squeezed off the road by passing cars every 100 yards... so many things from times gone by. Thanks again for posting.
When i was young when i saw pictures of England in the 30's 40's and 50's i thought it all looked old fashioned boring and unappealing. Now i'm in my fifties and in comparison with the modern world it looks idyllic. A slower pace of life, not being bombarded with tv and information 24 hours a day, the joys of fresh air and walking for recreation.
Thank you. This was such an evocative portrait of the beauty that was pre-war England . Fantastic photographs and an excellent choice of music for the soundtrack.
@ I think that whenever I see comments like that. These pictures were taken because they're of interest, for their beauty. Just like we take pictures of nice things we see today. I can go to Bath and take some incredible pictures of a seemingly Georgian/Victorian step back in time, but I can also go there on a day everyones waiting to have their bins collected. These pictures are also artifically coloured, so the colours may be more vibrant too, as well as the old fashioned camera adding a grainy charm. England is still beautiful chaps. Remember, the cities were filled with smog and before that in the Victorian era, people lived in muddy slums. The only difference I can really see is the clothing, and cars, maybe shop signs sure are a bit tackier compared to how they used to be, but I'm in the countryside so it may all be different living in a city
The we must do something about it! Complaints are useless. Change starts with you! You can start by refusing the plastic bag at your supermarket and stop buying products packaged in plastic.
@@NigelFowlerSutton Hard Times Create Strong Men. Strong Men Create Good Times. Good Times Create Weak Men. Weak Men Create Hard times. No prizes for guessing where we are in the cycle now.
@Alexander Challis My dad left Britain after the War.Went back to his old job as a mechanic after being in the Fleet Air Arm in the War.Got treated like crap again just as before.Same old class system.He told me they wouldn't even let the workers wash their hands before leaving work to get on the bus.Eventually ended up in New Zealand where Jack was as good as his master.Suited him fine.It was funny because he used to avoid Brit expats like the plague.Used to see GB on the back of cars here.Ra ra the bloody flag he used to say.
@Alexander Challis My Great- Grandfather served in the Imperial Yeomanry in the 2nd Boer War and then went to Belgium/France a few years later. He was landed gentry and saw most of his officer cadet class lost. There's a family legend about him having to shoot a load of horses at the end of the war and it driving him mad, I think it was a nicer excuse than shell shock but he returned from the war an abusive alcoholic. He was expelled from his local hunt a couple of years later. In response he rode his horse through the local pub smashing chairs and tables and whipping glassware.
Perfect Gentlemen I’m from the Wirral, which was nice but like most other places in the U.K. they are planning on building thousands of houses over the local green belt despite local opposition, so we will see how long it stays nice round by me.
John Seabrook nahhh it’s human nature to think like that. No ones going to be building much in the national parks. The landscape hasn’t changed for 100s of yrs
Yank here, so glad they had children for a bunch of reasons. That war was brutal. How was life for them after the war? The photography has an unmistakable pro touch, lucky for us viewers. Beautiful in all ways, I can't understand 8 thumbs down!
Wow, that is rather special, fantastic stuff Nigel. How I now weep for what our Country has become, all is lost, it feels like the end times are upon us.
If you leave the main roads and travel through the towns and villages you will still find endless scenes like these. This is beautifully presented thank you.
It is splendid music and photograph. Greensleeves, I hear this music by all means in the elementary and junior high school of Japan. Thank you for having you upload it. It really has good taste and affects a heart.
There are no words for your comment and your country try to destroy mine the way you treated are prisoners was disgusting then you made the mistake of taking on America didn't you in my honest opinion the bomb should have been dropped on Germany as well so thank you for your kind consideration keep them
Stuart Ashbourne-Martin every nation committed Wartime atrocities, read up on The Holy Crusades and the slaughter on the road to take Jerusalem. History has been documented for a reason. Will mankind ever live in Peace????
I have watched many videos on UA-cam over the years. However, none of these videos have made feel so patriotic and privileged to live In our beautiful country. Many parts of the idyll within this video still exist today, one just has to look a little harder to find them. Thank you for sharing these wonderful photographs.
Nigel Fowler Sutton Do you have a copy of Roger A. Freeman’s book - Britain in Colour? The photos within are not dissimilar from those in your video. It is a truly beautiful book to own.
Wonderful photos of a time my parents were 19 and just setting out in the world. What was coming next changed all that. I recognised many of the places photographed. Thank you.
O England - land of my long ago; how beautiful....and how magical the memory! A delightful homage to our heritage in both sight and sound. Thank you for this treasured return to yesteryear.
@@kreznreich Thank you for the comment. What was left behind resulted in many choosing to join the Commonwealth with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as its devoted guiding light.
@@kreznreich If you're as old as me, you might remember that when young, he had the nickname "Randy Andy". GB's royal family has had its share of this sort of thing, with Prince Eddy (check him out) and the playboy prince - later a successful monarch as King Edward V11 - being two notable examples from back in the day. But the institution has always been valued and preserved above the individual member, just as it should be. Allegations are one thing: proof beyond a reasonable doubt (or "the balance of probabilities") for any breaches of the law in any particular place at any given time, another matter altogether. .....
John Betjeman would have approved of these memories. To capture some of this you really should read 'Trains and Buttered Toast'.He dishes out nostalgia in spoonfuls!
Thank you for that, a nice nostalgic look back and good bit of escapism. Growing up in the sixties, I thought it seemed better than today, yes there were more challenges but people seemed happier.
For me, recalling the 60s and long playful walks and right on into the 70s were a joy beyond the scope of many different communities across our once beautiful land. Thank you for sharing your photos and forgive me for my own digressions into my vault of which i call my mind.
They are wonderfully evocative photos and I recognise some of the locations having lived in Boston for a number of years, and my brother lived in Snettisham in the 1970s. My dad was still at grammar school in 1939, but five years later landed in Normandy on D Day. Their youth was stolen and trashed by Hitler.
This is beautiful; the images & the music. It's almost sad too, because it's a time obviously gone; I know there are still old listed buildings around, but this was obviously a time when the world didn't have the expanse of litter louting & discarding of rubbish, plus a threat of global warming was a long way off, but I'm sure people must have felt threatened by the 2nd World War. Anyway, while watching this I was thinking it must be one of the most beautiful videos on UA-cam! I also like the use of Green Sleeves throughout the vid, well done.
A bit of a selective view. Clearly didn’t visit the slums or the industrial north or the Midlands. Visit the shoeless kids. Shouldn’t be viewed as an accurate representation of 1939 Britain but some pretty photos. Just like you can take today
Thank you NFS for this photo essay. I couldn't help but wistfully wonder what life in England would have been like if the war hadn't happened. I suppose those kinds of thoughts follow the realization of what was lost and can never return. If the purpose of this post was to get us thinking and dreaming of another time and place, you have succeeded,
Wow I have family who live in Snettisham ( Maternal great grandparents were from there) and two of them work on the Sandringham Estate, still a beautiful part of England but simpler times, would be lovely to time travel to see how things were then. I'm im Manchester but quite a few of the family have been drawn back to Norfolk. Lovely video.
Very beautiful. Wonderful, evocative photographs. A different pace of life. A young couple setting out on their life together, but we know now what awful events were about to unfold. Very thought provoking. Thank you very much for sharing. I would like to think they had a good life together and came through what life was about to throw at them.
Compliments to the photographer and the use of Vaughan Williams arrangement of English folk songs. Beautiful scenes, Beautiful music and beautiful presentation via computer technology. 🌺🌺🌺👍👍👍🖼🖼🖼
my dearest friend, Nigel :) A really calm and beautiful pre-war British good memories album! thanks for share. Have a great Friday and weekend with my best wishes :)))😀
The final summer before the years of war that changed the fate of nations throughout the world. I am pleased you enjoyed the video, my dearest friend, Suo. I send you seasonal greetings, best wishes, health and happiness for your weekend ahead! Nigel
As a photographer myself I loved the photos and it does make you want to appreciate some of the delights of a possibly "simpler life". Reading the comments below makes you realise how people see things differently and have varying experiences. I agree with most comments, except those who swear at those who see things differently. Yes - I imagine a class society was well-entrenched and those who were able to afford a car like that at their age, for whatever reason, may have had it better than many. It is still nice to hold on to the good things we experienced. A lot of people died, soon after these photos were taken, to save the what they had.
Fantastic photographs. Thanks for sharing. Some of that wonderful countryside can still be found in lesser travelled parts of East Anglia, but Britain was to be changed forever soon after their trip.
The England of Dad's Army ... "There will always be an England, and England shall be free if England means as much to you as England means to me." (Vera Lynn, summer of 1939)
@@EricIrl People have always used the word 'England' when they really meant 'Great Britain', England being the most populous and largest part of the UK. And yes, that obviously includes the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish - or at least part of them. Satisfied?
@Percy Harry Hotspur Not to mention the 100,000 Irishmen who fought in the British armed forces in World War 2. Do you know that the last surviving Battle of Britain fighter pilot is a proud Dubliner? If any race has caused trouble and dissent on these islands I would put the English ahead - by a country mile (an Irish mile, of course).
Very interesting. The photography was excellent. The photographer had a really good eye for a landscape composition. Also the soundtrack was perfect for these images.
Thank you. Having been raised in North Norfolk during the 1950's I recognised the background to many of these glorious images without a moment's hesitation.
People all over the world dream about the past ages when "man kind lived in harmony with the nature". In fact, there was no harmony what so ever. Our present living conditions is way way better, than they were even a century ago. I am not even talking about millennium ago.
I remember seeing this series of photos in the daily mail. They're absolutely captivating. I made sure to get the best copies of them that I could find! Our green and pleasant land in hazy English summer time. Gone forever. Perfect choice of music also.
A nostalgic time that will never return. We can preserve them in our memory and thank God we win the war. Our nation and Empire saved the World from being en slaved. God bless our Green and pleasant land.
It almost feels like a punch to the stomach watching this video. It is the England my grandparents told me about. All lost now, lost in time and replaced by something coarse and uncouth.
@Topgun God I can't stand merkel but I would say british politicians destroyed it more than she ever could....high time for direct democracy.....power to the people
@Topgun God I don't think direct democracy can be as easily manipulated as representative democracy....however, I totally agree with your point that only net taxpayers should be able to vote! whoever draws benefits should lose the right to vote!!
@Topgun God I was talking about direct democracy like in Switzerland for example, not those communist leeches we have in U.S., UK and Europe. I think we are in agreement in principle.
I have some beautiful photos of my wife as a child in the Irish countryside in the 1950s ..such a simple way of life..not far from where she was sitting outside a cottage in a photo there is now a huge Petrol station and a Macdonalds.Her grandparents never ate out and were self sufficient with all food...great simple living with no hectic stress filled lives fuelled by greed and being busy
Maybe they weren't giving the video a thumbs down but something else eg colouring, the Braggers in the comments section, the repetition of some pics etc, the non stop ads
The England I loved, gone forever, lump in throat, tear in eye, I never realised how much we’d lost until you see this.
Simpler times in a "green and pleasant land". I am a child of the fifties now in Ireland and its the same story here. Sad really.......
Very moving. I had the strong urge to weep knowing what was just around the corner for the people in those photographs.
I was born in 1947, it is so sad to know my children and their children will never know what a beautiful country I was brought up in, full of innocence.
Born in 1946, I also can remember what England used to be like, sad now. To the modern generation who don't know, today is their memories.
born in '43 - glorious to see my distant memories - always remember driving home and having to wait for the cows going down the road to be milked
@@edmundwest5636 ..... ❤️👍👍👍👏
this clip made me cry . I so love what our country looked like and how proud we were of it . it made us stand tall and upright and such a beautiful place it was . like I said you made me cry but thank you :)
so very true...
I just wish England to get what England gave to the colonized countries. Just let the karma work!
@@kreznreichTwat!
This has just made me cry for our beautiful country.
Don't be sad. We've now got mosques and minarets on every street corner. Don't you prefer this to a rustic country churchyard? Surely everyone loves the cultural enrichment? And all those lovely gay marriages. Much more exciting than a boring man and woman marriage. All those Somalians. Don't you get turned on by the wonderful cosmopolitan aspect of racial integration?
Don't be sad everyone. We've now got mosques and minarets on every street corner. Don't you prefer this to a rustic country churchyard? Surely everyone loves the cultural enrichment? And all those lovely gay marriages. Much more exciting than a boring man and woman marriage. All those Somalians. Don't you get turned on by the wonderful cosmopolitan aspect of racial integration?
Your foaming racism and homophobia has caused you to hallucinate and hyperventilate. Mosques and minarets are not on every street corner.
Ian Rivlin when the British Commonwealth dominated every Civilisation.
What goes around comes around. Good and bad.
Machines destroyed the Earth, man is addicted to Machines.
Motor Cars AKA motor vehicles of mass destruction.
People walked,,,now they exercise the feet on the accelerator of pollution vehicles.
Speed is the problem.
@@josephhapp9 what are ridiculous argument? Politics has led to peoples lives being destroyed everywhere. We could also say say slavery started the decline of human life that Mesopotamia perhaps it is cultures that have checked population? Women think they’re very clever to have four wives and at least 15 children with each maybe that is what is destroying the planet otherwise we could all be sitting on her rears blaming the Ottoman Empire the Roman Empire the Viking invasion and slavery and look at how the Romans carved up this country and took our resources come now you and I both know, it is male domination of women and the way to make them subservient is to keep them pregnant and patch yourself on the back if somehow siring children is something to be proud of population growth has caused this distraction of the world
Just beautiful and so nostalgic....
Thank you very much!
My parents were married in England during the same Summer of 1939, (as were many who could see what was on the horizon). Their Kodak Box Brownie camera was used to capture lovely black and white photos of those days in the sunshine, and somehow survive to this day in the form of a family photo album which accompanied the little family of four to Australia in 1952.
But before the family blossomed, both parents went into the Armed Forces shortly after War was declared, only to meet again under trying circumstances a few times in England and Scotland until 1946 when my father was eventually "demobbed" in Burma and caught a troopship back to England.
Thanks for these lovely colour photos which so wonderfully capture the essence of the county all those years ago.
Several people in this Comments Section lament the loss of the English countryside with its peace and tranquillity, sounding quite brought to tears. However, as a regular viewer of many Narrowboating Channels on UA-cam, I'm quite up to date with the *present circumstances* prevailing along England's extensive Canals and Waterways, and express great admiration for those folk who live contented lives traversing the still extant countryside aboard their Narrowboats. Many others choose to picnic or simply walk or ride a bike along the towpaths to get similar experiences.
_"Get out and about your beautiful country people"_ - there's enough still there to last your lifetime, if only you would switch off the Mainstream Media that assaults your senses.
WELL SAID.
This is beautiful and obviously from the heart. You don't have to be British/English to appreciate the very human sentiments associated with the video.
Greensleeves/Vaughn Williams playing in the background does not hurt either :)
I just wish England to get what England gave to the colonized countries...
That beautiful country, gone forever.
Thank you, I'm crying now for what has been taken from us.
If there were some place far away where a new land could be created,
I would create a land just like this now lost land.
Thank you so very much.
It looked a lot less appealing if you were standing in Hackney or Tower Hamlets..
There will always be those who take something beautiful and grind it beneath their heel. Don't ever believe you're not right to cry for what is gone.
@@clearlake3492 Most of America was the same. Stop complaining.
@@nihilistcentraluk442 yeah--phantacists are just dreamer's. A word War destroyed this Britain, and uncontrolled immigration. Show me a European country that hasn't changed.
@@MrDaiseymay exactly You have to move with the times instead of hoping to return to a past which has gone.
I miss my beautiful country.
It's still there.
I'm not sure if you've moved away from Britain, or just believe the unfortunate media headlines that tell you things have changed beyond help. But if you want to see the Britain in these pictures...it is still there.
don‘t you live there anymore?
@@edwardsills2664 oh no, it’s not. It is being concreted over as fast as it can be and the speed and pace is stepping up. I’m not sure if you actually ever really knew the countryside if you did how can you possibly say this?
Beautiful, lets be honest the country looked much nicer back then. I wish I lived then instead of now.
shellsbignumber2 just depends in which class you‘d have lived then...
ALOT of Britain still looks like this. You may be looking in the wrong places.
I'm not sure the 30's were as good as it may be assumed, my grandfather spent SEVEN years unemployed,like millions of others, until he joined the army in 1937, and things only looked rosey if you were rich!
Without public healthcare?
Stop moaning! do something that makes Britain attractive and respected!!
If you were upper class it was fantastic, but for lower classes it was very hard! And if you were gay, forget it, you'll be locked up.. And if you were poor and sick, sorry no doctor you have to pay.
As a retired photographer. Who enjoyed looking at the archive photographs at my old studio.during quite winter days. May I say your relative had a very good eye and captured the moment very well. You should be proud off their work.
My family emigrated to Australia in 1952 when I was 6 years old. My mother never did get to grips with the Australian landscape/climate and longed for the England so well captured in this delightful video. I have hd the opportunity to visit England on many occasions since that time and I understand the longing she felt. My family and I are Aussies who would not long to live anywhere else. Thank you for a great clip.
Hi Roy and thank you for your visit and interesting video. I grew up in England and loved the countryside, quaint villages and historic buildings. Now at 67, I choose to live in Laos and have done so for the past 12 years. I love this part of the world and the climate. I can't see me every settling back in the UK.
@@NigelFowlerSutton Gooday Nigel.I spent a fair amount of time in your part of the world unfortunately during the SE Asia conflict of the 60s-70s. I have several friends who reside permanently in a variety of spots about Thailand in particular. They will not return to Aus as they feel the same as yourself about Laos. Enjoy life mate.
Just as I remember it - the essence of beauty and civilization.
Except if you were poor
I just wish England to get what England gave to the colonized countries...
@@tonyshergold6023 NOT EVERYONE, WE WERE ALL RICH, IN A DIFFERENT WAY
@@tonyshergold6023 THAT'S CIRCUMSTANTIAL, THE FURTHER YOU GO BACK, THE LESS THAT WEALTH WAS DISTRIBUTED.
@@kreznreich what medicine roads hospitals schools the railway structure that is still being used in India to this day education most of all and if we’re talking about colonisation what about the Ottoman colonisation that was pretty gross and brought nothing to the countries they just took
Absolutely fantastic brilliant I was created in 1939 born in 1940 still going in May 2020
GOD BLESSES YOU... I DO BELIEVE.
CHEERS SIR !!...
from RUTLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA .... Eh !
Bragger
Great images. So poignant knowing war was just weeks away.
Beautiful, and so moving. Living in East Anglia, I recognised a few of the still photos. Since then we have lost far more than we have gained.
Truly evocative, poignant, especially as we know what horrors are about to be visited upon all those people, quietly going about their business.
So grateful to the wonderful, social historians that had the foresight to capture these scenes, to preserve the moments in time. Thank you.
And my father fought in this war. Oh, how he would now turn in his grave to see what our once great England has become. I'm a grown man but cried when I saw our war memorials being desecrated this summer.
Once the most beautiful country on earth (still is imo) a true heaven. Now we have the dark side with drugs, hate and gangsta rap! This beautiful land will soon become a torn flag on the devil's horns.
@Motown Boy. Yes mate me n u share the same memories of our dads n grandads fighting and dying for WHAT!!!! For the UK to be the shithole it has become today 😢
I just wish England to get what England gave to the colonized countries...
UKstill had its problems all those years ago, it wasn’t problem free or crime free. It’s all relative so don’t look back through rose tinted spectacles because there were just as many problems facing us
@askiff1415 while I respectfully understand your point there, today I walk out into the street & Essex border town that I've lived all my life and also the town my adoption parents took cover in from Doodle-bugs aimed at the WW2 Enfield Arms ammunition factories, to bump into yet another street drugs deal, or to hear of another local knife crime or wonder if they'll be another road closure due to another armed incident.
I can't help, but feel IT IS a lot worse here than ever before and that the beautiful fields 5 minutes from me, like the ones seen in this video, will be for, yet, an additional housing estate to be built to cover the London expansion 😥
It certainly leaves us older ones with a heavy heart.
There is no doubt , England was once loved by her people.
This was so beautiful and unexpected, especially now the mess our country (UK) is in. Now people don't seem to care if their heritage is destroyed before their eyes. Isn't it worth preserving? Well I think it is!
Well, how lovely. I was alive then born the 7/2/39 Dad was 23 and mother 21. Many thanks for showing that film.
Beautiful photography with the Fantasia on Greensleeves by Vaughan Williams. Wonderful journey to England before the war. Thank you for this marvellous post.
Thank you so very much for posting this. A time long gone, but definitely not forgotten, and one I was not born into - I popped into the world 18 years after WW2 ended. No graffiti. No mobile 'phones. No satellite dishes. No gaudily coloured cars with loud 'music' or silly exhausts. No designer labels on clothing... simply much less materialistic times... AND NO PLASTIC WASTE!
For me, it was 9 years after the conclusion of war. How life was so simple and uncluttered. Yet we knew how to enjoy ourselves. And as you know, we recycled and had paper carrier bags, returnable glass bottles....... ! Mind you, I love the internet and to be able to post videos like this...!
@@NigelFowlerSutton Some tech has its place, I agree, but I am worried about how obsessed some are with it. They are missing what is really around them; missing what is really important - the natural and real world.
I remember collecting glass bottle from bins and taking them to my local shop for the refund. Paper carrier bags and greaseproof paper instead of plastic. Wax paper on loaves of bread that you could use for tracing things. Orange cellophane on glass Lucozace bottles - and Lucozade for when you were 'proper poorly' only. Elm trees and wildflowers in fields. Harvest mice and straw bales that you could build dens out of. Roads you could cycle on for miles without being squeezed off the road by passing cars every 100 yards... so many things from times gone by.
Thanks again for posting.
When i was young when i saw pictures of England in the 30's 40's and 50's i thought it all looked old fashioned boring and unappealing. Now i'm in my fifties and in comparison with the modern world it looks idyllic. A slower pace of life, not being bombarded with tv and information 24 hours a day, the joys of fresh air and walking for recreation.
Wonderful. Thank you from USA.
Thank you for that, my lovely country to, also gone, but not forgotten thanks to the video. What a fantastic place England was.
Couldn't agree more!
I was born in Lincoln 20 years after these photo's were taken. Thank's for showing.
Thank you. This was such an evocative portrait of the beauty that was pre-war England . Fantastic photographs and an excellent choice of music for the soundtrack.
Thanks a lot Mark
The places look so clean, sharp and rubbish free. A period before plastic waste everywhere. The past is another country.
They do things differently....
@ I think that whenever I see comments like that. These pictures were taken because they're of interest, for their beauty. Just like we take pictures of nice things we see today. I can go to Bath and take some incredible pictures of a seemingly Georgian/Victorian step back in time, but I can also go there on a day everyones waiting to have their bins collected. These pictures are also artifically coloured, so the colours may be more vibrant too, as well as the old fashioned camera adding a grainy charm. England is still beautiful chaps. Remember, the cities were filled with smog and before that in the Victorian era, people lived in muddy slums. The only difference I can really see is the clothing, and cars, maybe shop signs sure are a bit tackier compared to how they used to be, but I'm in the countryside so it may all be different living in a city
There are thankfully still some of it left. Seek and you will find.
The we must do something about it! Complaints are useless. Change starts with you! You can start by refusing the plastic bag at your supermarket and stop buying products packaged in plastic.
Green Sleeves....what a perfect song and time before things changed.
"Won' the war but lost so much.
Ultimately all wars are scourges upon humanity with senseless loss of a generation of fine young men......
@@NigelFowlerSutton
Hard Times Create Strong Men.
Strong Men Create Good Times.
Good Times Create Weak Men.
Weak Men Create Hard times.
No prizes for guessing where we are in the cycle now.
@Alexander Challis My dad left Britain after the War.Went back to his old job as a mechanic after being in the Fleet Air Arm in the War.Got treated like crap again just as before.Same old class system.He told me they wouldn't even let the workers wash their hands before leaving work to get on the bus.Eventually ended up in New Zealand where Jack was as good as his master.Suited him fine.It was funny because he used to avoid Brit expats like the plague.Used to see GB on the back of cars here.Ra ra the bloody flag he used to say.
There were some people who made money out of this lands and our misery. Regardless, they are still with us now.
@Alexander Challis My Great- Grandfather served in the Imperial Yeomanry in the 2nd Boer War and then went to Belgium/France a few years later. He was landed gentry and saw most of his officer cadet class lost. There's a family legend about him having to shoot a load of horses at the end of the war and it driving him mad, I think it was a nicer excuse than shell shock but he returned from the war an abusive alcoholic. He was expelled from his local hunt a couple of years later. In response he rode his horse through the local pub smashing chairs and tables and whipping glassware.
Bravo 👍 Super 👌 très jolies photos de l'époque 1939
Bonne Soirée mon ami Nigel ! merci , salutations Paul
Bonjour Paul.
Merci beaucoup pour votre visite et bon commentaire.
J'apprécie vraiment votre soutien.
Salutations festives et un bon week-end. Nigel
A wonderful collection of photographs. Thank you
Back when England was beautiful and not hidden under houses and roads
Was stunning when I was camping last week. Dunno where you are.
Perfect Gentlemen I’m from the Wirral, which was nice but like most other places in the U.K. they are planning on building thousands of houses over the local green belt despite local opposition, so we will see how long it stays nice round by me.
@@justbreakingballs well you should have stepped outside the tent for a better view.
Perfect Gentlemen another twenty years, there will be no where to pitch your tent.
John Seabrook nahhh it’s human nature to think like that. No ones going to be building much in the national parks. The landscape hasn’t changed for 100s of yrs
Yank here, so glad they had children for a bunch of reasons. That war was brutal. How was life for them after the war? The photography has an unmistakable pro touch, lucky for us viewers. Beautiful in all ways, I can't understand 8 thumbs down!
Beautiful choise of music and photographs - thank you.
Brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful.
Wow, that is rather special, fantastic stuff Nigel. How I now weep for what our Country has become, all is lost, it feels like the end times are upon us.
If you leave the main roads and travel through the towns and villages you will still find endless scenes like these. This is beautifully presented thank you.
Especially in Lincolnshire, the East Riding and North Yorkshire.
A different world,yet not really so long ago.
It is splendid music and photograph. Greensleeves, I hear this music by all means in the elementary and junior high school of Japan. Thank you for having you upload it. It really has good taste and affects a heart.
Thank you very much. You are most welcome. The music is from a traditional English song and very popular in England. Best wishes. NIgel
@ASCALON
More likely not.
If Good King Henry 'the axe' sez he wrote it then he wrote it, not worth losing you head over 😊
There are no words for your comment and your country try to destroy mine the way you treated are prisoners was disgusting then you made the mistake of taking on America didn't you in my honest opinion the bomb should have been dropped on Germany as well so thank you for your kind consideration keep them
Stuart Ashbourne-Martin every nation committed Wartime atrocities, read up on The Holy Crusades and the slaughter on the road to take Jerusalem.
History has been documented for a reason.
Will mankind ever live in Peace????
I have watched many videos on UA-cam over the years. However, none of these videos have made feel so patriotic and privileged to live In our beautiful country. Many parts of the idyll within this video still exist today, one just has to look a little harder to find them. Thank you for sharing these wonderful photographs.
You're most welcome!
Nigel Fowler Sutton Do you have a copy of Roger A. Freeman’s book - Britain in Colour? The photos within are not dissimilar from those in your video. It is a truly beautiful book to own.
WONDERFUL. Thanks for posting this Nigel !
Wonderful photos of a time my parents were 19 and just setting out in the world. What was coming next changed all that. I recognised many of the places photographed. Thank you.
O England - land of my long ago; how beautiful....and how magical the memory! A delightful homage to our heritage
in both sight and sound. Thank you for this treasured return to yesteryear.
I just wish England to get what England gave to the colonized countries...
@@kreznreich Thank you for the comment. What was left behind resulted in
many choosing to join the Commonwealth with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as its devoted
guiding light.
@@songsmith31a QE II who raised a son like prince (or ped.??) Andrew. Huhhh...
@@kreznreich If you're as old as me, you might remember that when young, he
had the nickname "Randy Andy". GB's royal family has had its share of this sort of thing, with
Prince Eddy (check him out) and the playboy prince - later a successful monarch as King Edward V11 - being two notable examples from back in the day. But the institution has always been
valued and preserved above the individual member, just as it should be. Allegations are one
thing: proof beyond a reasonable doubt (or "the balance of probabilities") for any breaches
of the law in any particular place at any given time, another matter altogether. .....
@@songsmith31a I adore your calmness. Cheers!
John Betjeman would have approved of these memories. To capture some of this you really should read 'Trains and Buttered Toast'.He dishes out nostalgia in spoonfuls!
Brilliant thank you I hope they had long and happy lives
Thank you for that, a nice nostalgic look back and good bit of escapism. Growing up in the sixties, I thought it seemed better than today, yes there were more challenges but people seemed happier.
This was stunning and so beautifully presented. I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you.
For me, recalling the 60s and long playful walks and right on into the 70s were a joy beyond the scope of many different communities across our once beautiful land.
Thank you for sharing your photos and forgive me for my own digressions into my vault of which i call my mind.
They are wonderfully evocative photos and I recognise some of the locations having lived in Boston for a number of years, and my brother lived in Snettisham in the 1970s. My dad was still at grammar school in 1939, but five years later landed in Normandy on D Day. Their youth was stolen and trashed by Hitler.
This is beautiful; the images & the music. It's almost sad too, because it's a time obviously gone; I know there are still old listed buildings around, but this was obviously a time when the world didn't have the expanse of litter louting & discarding of rubbish, plus a threat of global warming was a long way off, but I'm sure people must have felt threatened by the 2nd World War. Anyway, while watching this I was thinking it must be one of the most beautiful videos on UA-cam! I also like the use of Green Sleeves throughout the vid, well done.
Thank you very much, Simon. You are most welcome!
Global warming is not a threat now - that is all a myth.
A bit of a selective view. Clearly didn’t visit the slums or the industrial north or the Midlands. Visit the shoeless kids. Shouldn’t be viewed as an accurate representation of 1939 Britain but some pretty photos. Just like you can take today
@@terrybiddle6189 So very true to many of us whats the answer
@@terrybiddle6189 they were on their honeymoon not on a Guardianista's jolly
Thankyou Nigel,lovely pictures of what once was,pleased to see some pics of Lincoln and the cathedral,my home county.👌
Glad you enjoyed it
Thank you NFS for this photo essay. I couldn't help but wistfully wonder what life in England would have been like if the war hadn't happened. I suppose those kinds of thoughts follow the realization of what was lost and can never return. If the purpose of this post was to get us thinking and dreaming of another time and place, you have succeeded,
Wow I have family who live in Snettisham ( Maternal great grandparents were from there) and two of them work on the Sandringham Estate, still a beautiful part of England but simpler times, would be lovely to time travel to see how things were then. I'm im Manchester but quite a few of the family have been drawn back to Norfolk. Lovely video.
Thank you
That was beautiful.
A blissful, bucolic moment in time. That Morris 8 might not have tempted Captain Hastings but she's a beauty.
Very beautiful. Wonderful, evocative photographs. A different pace of life. A young couple setting out on their life together, but we know now what awful events were about to unfold. Very thought provoking. Thank you very much for sharing. I would like to think they had a good life together and came through what life was about to throw at them.
Compliments to the photographer and the use of Vaughan Williams arrangement of English folk songs.
Beautiful scenes,
Beautiful music and beautiful presentation via computer technology.
🌺🌺🌺👍👍👍🖼🖼🖼
my dearest friend, Nigel :) A really calm and beautiful pre-war British good memories album! thanks for share. Have a great Friday and weekend with my best wishes :)))😀
The final summer before the years of war that changed the fate of nations throughout the world. I am pleased you enjoyed the video, my dearest friend, Suo. I send you seasonal greetings, best wishes, health and happiness for your weekend ahead! Nigel
Nigel Fowler Sutton
my pleasure! my dearest friend, Nigel :) Thank you for your kind reply:-)))
We still have some lovely towns and villages - just about. We need to preserve them.
As a photographer myself I loved the photos and it does make you want to appreciate some of the delights of a possibly "simpler life". Reading the comments below makes you realise how people see things differently and have varying experiences. I agree with most comments, except those who swear at those who see things differently. Yes - I imagine a class society was well-entrenched and those who were able to afford a car like that at their age, for whatever reason, may have had it better than many. It is still nice to hold on to the good things we experienced. A lot of people died, soon after these photos were taken, to save the what they had.
WoW I never lived in this time. But my god it was beautiful. Thank you for this.
You're very welcome
Fantastic photographs. Thanks for sharing. Some of that wonderful countryside can still be found in lesser travelled parts of East Anglia, but Britain was to be changed forever soon after their trip.
The England of Dad's Army ... "There will always be an England, and England shall be free if England means as much to you as England means to me." (Vera Lynn, summer of 1939)
But what about the Scots, Irish and Welsh?
@@EricIrl I suspect they have rather more songs than the English
@@EricIrl People have always used the word 'England' when they really meant 'Great Britain', England being the most populous and largest part of the UK. And yes, that obviously includes the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish - or at least part of them. Satisfied?
@@Oldfaithful61 "People" are wrong then, aren't they. I'm Irish and would never call myself "English".
@Percy Harry Hotspur Not to mention the 100,000 Irishmen who fought in the British armed forces in World War 2. Do you know that the last surviving Battle of Britain fighter pilot is a proud Dubliner?
If any race has caused trouble and dissent on these islands I would put the English ahead - by a country mile (an Irish mile, of course).
From the days before Councils went road paint and sign mad.
Brilliant. Thanks for posting.
Feeling a wee nostalgic here.
And this is not even my homeland!
Very interesting.
The photography was excellent.
The photographer had a really good eye for a landscape composition.
Also the soundtrack was perfect for these images.
Thank you. Having been raised in North Norfolk during the 1950's I recognised the background to many of these glorious images without a moment's hesitation.
I always feel nostalgic about these times I did not lived
That is why you feel nostalgic.You didn't live there...the grass is always greener
People all over the world dream about the past ages when "man kind lived in harmony with the nature". In fact, there was no harmony what so ever. Our present living conditions is way way better, than they were even a century ago. I am not even talking about millennium ago.
You can see and fully understand why they fought so hard to keep it! 😢❤
Fabulous, thanks for sharing.
You're most welcome
That was wonderful, thanks for publishing.
Absolutely stunning.......My lovely country....
What a lovely video - Thank you for posting!
Glad you enjoyed it!
That's great times that never back!
I love britain land and people💖
A beautiful video, so evocative of times gone by, coupled with the perfect sound track. Thank you.
Totally stunning. I have often said I would have loved to be around during the 30s & 40s (I was born in 1961)
Such a different place. I hope we can all return to such serenity one day. Thank you.
Thank you that was beautifully nostalgic. The music so appropriate.
Marvellous, just marvellous. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I remember seeing this series of photos in the daily mail. They're absolutely captivating. I made sure to get the best copies of them that I could find!
Our green and pleasant land in hazy English summer time. Gone forever.
Perfect choice of music also.
Thank you
A nostalgic time that will never return. We can preserve them in our memory and thank God we win the war. Our nation and Empire saved the World from being en slaved. God bless our Green and pleasant land.
What a perfect video. Thanks for all the work on that.
Beautiful to watch and to listen to, but at the same time it breaks my heart.
Thanks for your visit and comment.
@@NigelFowlerSutton No, thank you for such a wonderful post.
THERES MORE BLEEDIN HEARTS HERE THAN IN ANY SURGERY
Thank you. A time I wish I could have seen.
I’m sure at 1 minute 37 seconds is Wells next to sea ;lovely Norfolk.
Grossly overcrowded now
Yes it is, I was reading the comment to see if anyone recognised any of these places
It almost feels like a punch to the stomach watching this video. It is the England my grandparents told me about. All lost now, lost in time and replaced by something coarse and uncouth.
And it isn't even the Germans who destroyed that beauty.
@Topgun God I can't stand merkel but I would say british politicians destroyed it more than she ever could....high time for direct democracy.....power to the people
@Topgun God I don't think direct democracy can be as easily manipulated as representative democracy....however, I totally agree with your point that only net taxpayers should be able to vote! whoever draws benefits should lose the right to vote!!
@Topgun God I was talking about direct democracy like in Switzerland for example, not those communist leeches we have in U.S., UK and Europe. I think we are in agreement in principle.
Saw that Merkel woman singlehandedly destroy an English market town in an afternoon !
@ I'm of course referring to the destruction after WW II, not during.
Wonderful, thanks for sharing. Just love the last photo particularly
My beautiful country gone forever RIP. Thank you mr Blair, thank you mr Brown, thank you Mrs May thank you mr Johnson.
who did I leave out.
Hitler------(what is Johnson guilty of? )--he's saved us from total destruction. Just sit back and watch the rest of europe disintergrate
( To John Govus) Just about every other political quisling: they're all the same whatever their ranking.
Thatcher.
Started by Margaret Thatcher who decimated the industries
Don't let your beautiful country disappear!! You have always been fighters, don't give up...
Doesn't seem to be ours anymore
I have some beautiful photos of my wife as a child in the Irish countryside in the 1950s ..such a simple way of life..not far from where she was sitting outside a cottage in a photo there is now a huge Petrol station and a Macdonalds.Her grandparents never ate out and were self sufficient with all food...great simple living with no hectic stress filled lives fuelled by greed and being busy
Beautiful. I took a bus trip through England three years back. I thought I was in the Middle East. They just threw the country and culture away.
Just lovely. Thank you.
A beautiful set of pictures of a time long ago. I can almost hear the silence.
outstanding
Thank You
Nice registration no Eyv. Quite apt for the eve of the war .lovely pics. Thanks
beautiful pictures with beautiful background music.
who are the 28 miserable people who gave this wonderful piece a thumbs down? Pathetic!
Maybe they weren't giving the video a thumbs down but something else eg colouring, the Braggers in the comments section, the repetition of some pics etc, the non stop ads