Ian Hislop's Olden Days

Green Imagined Land (1x3)

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Ian Hislop explores the rural olden days - an idealised vision of the countryside - in this concluding film of his series exploring Britain's obsession with the past. Despite an overwhelmingly urban existence over the last 150 years, the British have increasingly looked to the supposedly timeless, unchanging countryside. It has inspired some of Britain's greatest writers and painters, and been just as influential in popular culture. It's no accident, Ian believes, that one of the most successful First World War recruitment posters used in British cities was of thatched cottages and rolling hills - with its slogan 'Isn't this worth fighting for?'.