By its creator, Clough Williams-Ellis. An Italianate village planted on the coast of North Wales, colourful and extravagant-an experiment in town planning, or one man's romantic folly? Clough Williams-Ellis , architect, writer, and conservationist, is now eighty-six. ' I wanted to show that you could in fact develop even a very beautiful place without defiling it-that you could even enhance what God had given you as a site to start with. And at Portmeirion I felt He'd given me everything possible.'
An aerial tour of the English seaside in the company of John Betjeman A swooping seagull takes its flight From Weymouth to the Isle of Wight From Cornish cliff tops wild and bare To crowds at Weston-super-Mare The seaside seen as history Bournemouth, Butlin's and Torquay Whatever paddles, surfs or sails Braves the waves or rides the gales A scrapbook made at Christmastime Of summer joys in film and rhyme.
An aerial tour of the emptiest and most beautiful corner of Britain, in the company of William Carrocher. For centuries Highlanders have been drifting away - driven off their lands by the difficulties of their environment and, above all, by the cruel events of history. Today the far north-west shows a legacy of 200 years of exploitation and misguided paternalism. The helicopter flew 3,000 miles, criss-crossing from Skye to Orkney, from Balmoral to St Kilda the loneliest of all the British Isles. The camera looked down on misty lochs which once sheltered Bonnie Prince Charlie ; on the roofless villages of deserted Hebridean islands; on crofters scratching a living from stony fields; on hydro-electric dams and forestry plantations which are intended to bring people back to the Highlands. If there is wilderness anywhere in Britain it is here; but for how long will it withstand the pressures of our ever-expanding population?
Scarborough ... the first British seabathing spa. Bridlington ... Charlotte Bronte saw the sea here for the first time - and wept. Grimsby ... a great fishing port -a busy, noisy, thriving town; yet from the sea on a misty day it looks like a romantic Italian city. When Stuart Hood was 12 years old his father took him from Montrose, in Angus, by sea to London. The Bird's-Eye View helicopter follows the route of his journey of discovery south: over the salmon boats, the red cliffs and abbey of Arbroath, the lighthouses, the islands and castles of Berwick and Northumberland, the black beaches of Durham, the beautiful lonely flatlands of Lincolnshire and Norfolk, the Suffolk coast of Peter Grimes , the birds and fisherboys of the Essex mudflats - and then into London's river.
For St Patrick's Day, the story of a journey around Ireland by one of its foremost writers. James Plunkett sets out from Dublin, where he was born, in search of his Ireland - its rich legends and tragic history, its humour and poetry and green landscapes. On the way the Bird's-Eye View helicopter catches the Blarney Stone being kissed for eloquence, and the racehorses of Vincent O'Brien galloping in Co Tipperary; currachs setting out in the stormy seas of the Aran Islands, and the beehive huts carved by monks more than 1,000 years ago on the jagged island rock of Skellig Michael ; the mountains and lakes of Sligo, which inspired Yeats's poetry, and the Irish Army exercising today where King William crossed the Boyne to victory in 1690. The quotations are read by T. P. MCKENNA , RICHARD PASCO and SIR JOHN BETJEMAN Music by JOHN BECKETT played by the RTE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Tenor soloist FRANK PATTERSON
A Land for all Seasons An anthology by Sir John Betjeman with Donald Houston , Gary Watson Barbara Leigh-Hunt Gabriel Woolf, Pauline Letts , John Boswall. A celebration of the British countryside in poetry, music, and aerial pictures, filmed throughout a whole year. SIR JOHN BETJEMAN has chosen a selection from his favourite English and Welsh poets and combined them with verse specialty written by himself. The Bird's-Eye View helicopter flew through the changing scenes of the English landscape.