Exercise 4.2: The British landscape during World War II

Reading the short extract from ‘Landscape for Everyone’, published in John Taylor's (1994) A Dream of England: Landscape, Photography and the Tourist’s Imagination we are asked to summarise the key points:

• Taylor suggests it was conventional to visualise the English landscape in the past and in literary times something Masterman helped bring the reader from historic past to modern day through century intervals. 

• Public fears that the industrial revolution once started threatened to spoil the landscape were re-focused on the threat of invasion in 1940 from Nazi Germany. However despite the threat from abroad and a mechanised army superficially spoiling the small villages countryside, journalist Henry Warren in his book "England is a Village" suggested the strength of the English landscape could never be destroyed

• Interestingly this threat of invasion to a degree resulted in the landscape being "damaged" from within with signposts, distance markers, location names etc being removed with a view to hindering an invading army

• Displacement of people, unaffordability and inability of travel due to poor finances and petrol shortages prevented many people visits to the country and thus remembrance of the countryside as was could only be dreamed about. Interestingly my maternal grandmother was born in London but moved to the countryside due to the fear of bombing. this was also true for many families / children for whom the countryside had never before been seen

• For those that couldn't return to the country, or see it as it once was Batsford's topographic books issued 10 years before were re-published allowing people to see the countryside unspoilt as it once was allowing people to dream of travel once again

• War and the threat of invasion helped people realise the value and beauty in the landscapes within their country they had taken for granted. Value was placed in images of the country side and photographers and writers encouraged to promote it. Interestingly picturesque type images became less popular an those with more narrative encouraged

• The countryside became popular with a British public that grew an affinity to it, understood its value and regarded it as "theirs" and patriotism increased, available commodity in war time with fear of invasion

• The exaggerated and not so exaggerated differences between German and English locations helped promote and therefore increase value in what the British people called freedom both in spirit and way of life

• The threat of invasion changed Dover from a coastal resort to a defensive position. indeed the British propaganda machine even inspired civilians to look optimistically toward the skies whereas the underlying theme was to help spot enemy planes

Reflection
In life in many ways, things we take for granted that are around us all the time can sometimes only have their real value fully understood at a time of potential loss. A phrase that best examples this is "you don't know what you had until you lost it".

Our landscapes, our countryside changes around us all the time, both for the good and bad. We all notice how the seasons change our landscapes. Walking regularly in the woods each year reveals a bit more of what was hidden in the winter time when the leaves and pine needles fall from the trees making a floor of a different material to the one we walked on most of the year.

Local to me history is all around with remains of castles and even an Abbey. I've lived in several areas in England and have always been amazed at the concrete machine gun type bunkers that are around, some obvious and some harder to discover. Kent was a good location for spotting these and an example how events in the past continue to shape the current and act as a good reminder of what could have happened and what we as a nation could have l