English Harvest (1938)

[MrJodyh54]

What?? No cell phones, no video games, no TV? Slender people? What is going on here? Those good old days are gone forever-sad to say.

[780special]

Wonderful and evocative . Thank you. Charming but also back-breaking work and long hours for low pay for the average farm worker.

[shinobiung]

the "times" were not better, only peoples character, so what is stopping you my friends from adopting good old english humility, the long lost english hospitality, the legendary english community, and the very missed english sense of justice. Sadly all gone since adopting the american way who adopted the dishonourable Israeli way

[EnglishG3nt]

Wonderful.

[mcpug10]

I remember this era very clearly, when as a child I was living on a farm in Wales to escape the bombing in Liverpool. Every scene in this film was familiar to me and I recall helping with the horses in some small way. The meals that the farmers and hired help ate at the end of the work day were huge and they earned them. What a wonderful trip down memory lane for me,

[chanctonbury63]

Imagine the first cut with your scythe, knowing you only had another 100 acres to do!

[ninjatoolkit]

5:17 Does that horse check its wing mirrors to see if it'll clear the gate?

[garymcq]

@OldMrGrace exactly.

[VictoriasRoses]

I love this. They sure did dress nicer than we do. Even to do farm work.

[burnleyfan11965]

Would love to have done this,hard long hours maybe but you out gathering crops.You generally got a cottage with it as well. But WW2 then mechanisation wrecked this way of life forever.delightful film

[mikewalker2233]

How did they cope with no mobile phones, no internet, just a pint of ale a day and an apple at the weekend. Awesome. Good healthy living.

[mikewalker2233]

@ingravegreen I am joking btw, farms and agriculture are lovely. Sounds like you had some good experiences. Ah, the olden days, my eyes are misting already.

Now, about that job.... lol

[mikewalker2233]

@ingravegreen No, I think you have misunderstood. I have inherited the farm and I am offering YOU the opportunity to work on it, just like in the video, for a tupenny a week. So you can experience the "Good Old Days".

While I live it up like Mr Darcy you can work your life away as a peasant farmers and spend all your wages in the on-site shop (at special prices of course!)

[mikewalker2233]

@mikewalker2233 I love farming too, but most of all I love peasants. They're bloody great!

[chanctonbury63]

@mikewalker2233 They are at their best on Oct 1st, when you can shoot them.

[mikewalker2233]

@ingravegreen Yes indeed, in fact I have inherited a farm and I would like you to work just like this for tupenny a week

[CarricThura]

bet they wouldn't have used german music if this had been a year later

[garymcq]

Actually Humphrey Jennings used german music in the majority of his films, in Diary for Timothy the narrator makes a comment about how the Nazis betrayed Germany.

[OldMrGrace]

@garymcq Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, No.6, composed long before the word Nazi had ever been invented.

[inregionecaecorum]

but at 3.03 and 5.02 you can see what looks like an Electricity Pylon in the background.

It's all romantic tosh of course, you wouldn't want to work that hard if you didn't have to, but beer from the watering can, well it has it's compensations I suppose.

[ziuk391968]

Super film

[mikewalker2233]

poor peasants really, exploited by mr darcy

[thomasking55]

Looks a HARD LIFE. It is wonderful it got captured on film

[59acres]

And notice the complete absence of fat people!! No need to go to the gym if you worked like they did.Think about it!.....Think harder........thats it...good girls and boys!

[ssjshires]

Those horses worked very hard indeed.

[gobbiner]

Strange to think that my grandfather was 31 years old in the Summer of 1938. Only 2 years later the Royal Navy would be rescuing our Army from the beaches of Dunkirk and the RAF fighting for this country's survival. The last year of peace, strange to look at this film knowing the horror that was to come.

[26highstreet]

I like this old documentarys, have a peacefull feeling about them. my grandfarther worked on a farm in devon from 1946-1952, and claimed they were worked like slaves from sun up till sun down 6 days a week

[granskare]

I can recall bailing hay and straw and that wonderful bits of straw getting beneath my shirt and more :) the good old days are better for thinking of than experiencing :)

[partheniaparthenia]

beautifully narrated, beautiful visual and they still do it this way in some NC areas.

[ElDudeBrother]

The final shot from 7.58 onwards might be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Sigh...

[DESTROYCCTV]

It is in fact just nostalgia to think those days better. In fact life was more often than not much harder and brutal than nowadays, (just read some Thomas Hardy to realise this). However there are genuine losses, the skill that those men possess, their husbandry of the land which we need to relearn if we are to fix our neglected countryside.

[Mangina9000]

Also Humphrey Jennings is great.

[applecounty]

Not forgetting Polio and TB. Farming took the best of a mans life, and gave little in return.

[skaboosh]

Some things are better now and some things are worse now....

these are great films

[jovossuck123]

Britain owned the doc scene

[openfold]

I've waited years to see this again....this might just be Jennings' finest film....and he made many great ones. How our grandparents lived....backbreaking hard work, and ageing too, though.

[xyzllii]

Beautifully filmed . It's prob a bit lng for my FBook..Will try.

[mikkifly]

didnt some of these people die defending our country in the war

lets put it in perspective

[CelticReject]

They really WERE the good old days. Modern life is rubbish!

[MadHobbit]

didnt the 1930's have mass unemployment? higher death rates? higher illiterate rates, it really depends on how you view life.

[latham29]

there were no antibiotics, backstreet abortions were rife, no decent contraception, homosexuality was illegal... then there was the death penalty. Ah, the civilized good old days.

[MadHobbit]

and rape crimes were pretty much the same as now, just not reported as much as it is now. children working at 13, most people had lack of luxuries, like cars, holidays, woman had limited opportunities to work. Social class system was rife, meaning if you born poor you died poor.

No health care system also.

[jovossuck123]

your so right Madhobbit

it annoys me when people say crap like "the world is getting worse/more violent etc"

the world is better than its ever been..and it has a hell of a lot more freedom

people love to confuse nostalgia with practicalities

[MatthewN32]

I don't think that people confuse nostalgia with practicalities, I think that they just remember the good things, and would like some of that to remain in todays world.

[jovossuck123]

I wasnt referring to "all" people

just certain comments on here regarding modern life as rubbish and the good old days being better (which is nostalgia over pract)

but one thing i will agree on and thats in the old days there was humphrey jennings....and thats something modern times cant (and prob wont ever) compete with

[Mangina9000]

I think the popular youtube user geriatric, who lived through this era, said it best: "I don't think the world has gotten better or worse, but things were far more simpler than and so we seemed happier. We were more innocent and there just were not enough things to know about or be concerned about as there are now." (paraphrase) So perhaps the world was objectively WORSE due to all the war and poverty and disease and ignorance, but better "subjectively."

[CaptainOvious123]

@latham29 how ignorant.

[MaximinusSentius]

Great film. Simpler times but, looks better than now days.

Thanks for uploading it.