'The ruddy lion ramping in his field of treasured gold' is the heraldic description of the Scottish Royal Arms. Tonight, as the Queen commences her Silver Jubilee visit to Scotland lain Cuthbertson invites you to take a helicopter seat and share with him a 75-minutes Aerial Grand Tour of that very individual part of the United Kingdom - from the Solway, north to Shetland, and south to the Tweed.
Sian Phillips introduces a Jubilee Year report on the contrary country west of Offa's Dyke which is the pride of some of its inhabitants and the despair of many others.
This film looks from the air at England through the seasons of the year. From the cliffs of Cornwall to the Fame Islands, from Castle Howard to Harlow New Town - this is a land of wild uplands and tamed suburbia, of rural solitude and seaside holiday camps, of industrial chimneys and landscaped gardens, of Roman walls, Georgian canals, steam engines and motorways. To accompany the pictures Sir John Betjeman has chosen verse from the English poets, ranging from Shakespeare to Philip Larkin, linked with his own commentary. Voices Michael Hordern, Richard Pasco, Prunella Scales, Janet Suzman.
