"There's only one real way to get to know the country and that's on your flat feet." This is an episode from a broadcast of 'Old Country' shown on Channel 4 in the 1980s. It was recorded at the time by Mark Taylor. In March 2011 I travelled north to visit him in Yorkshire and he very kindly lent me a copy of the VHS tape he'd made of several of my stepfather's programmes over twenty years ago. I have sent his original video tape (this clip is uploaded from a DVD copy from a copied VHS tape) to be digitised optimally to see if we can raise picture quality. I know however that we won't be able to achieve that until I can make wider use of the original 16mm film in an archive in Plymouth, film which contains the outside sequences of Jack's programmes but not the sequences where he speaks to camera from his 'shed'. For these we do have sound - on 1/4 inch reel to reel tape - that must be married to the soundless 16mm film*. (Film that was made mainly by his long term cameraman Stan Bréhaut who's work for 'Out of Town' - which ran over twenty years - is often to be recognised by the slight movement that shows even when out a sea since Stan worked with an old handheld Arri, which limited him to 100ft rolls of film - just over two minutes. This later film for 'Old Country' was the work of Steve Wagstaff.) The sound tapes contain library sound effects and JH's commentary through whole episodes, but the only studio picture we have comes courtesy of viewers who recorded these programmes at the time they were broadcast.
Here Jack walks with his pony Ghost for pleasure in the countryside following downland routes used by the packers to move the wool staple, source of England's pre-industrial wealth, noticing things at walking pace.
*To see what can be done with the 16mm film see an episode I've streamed on Vimeo of fishing off Littlehampton in the 1970s.
http://vimeo.com/12113036
This film has still been compressed so is not original, but the promise is there.
I was reminded recently - Aug'11 - that after Jack's death in 1994 Ghost was, as Jack had wanted, moved to the care of Sue and Jeff Mitchell at Highsteppers Farm, Sturminster Newton on the Dorset Stour under three miles from Jack's last home near Belchalwel.
Jack Hargreaves, illustrated by Bernard Venables, 'Fishing for a year' MacGibbon & Kee 1951, republished Medlar Press 1998
Jack Hargreaves, 'Out of Town: A Life Relived on Television', Dovecote Press 1987
Jack Hargreaves, 'The Old Country', Dovecote Press 1988
Jack Hargreaves with Terry Heathcote, 'The New Forest: A Portrait in Colour', Dovecote Press 1992
Paul Peacock, 'Jack Hargreaves - A Portrait', Farming Books & Videos 2006