Beside the Seaside: [duplicated post-production script for Bird's Eye View]

Sir John BETJEMAN

Publication Date: 1969

About this Item

36pp. 4to (printed rectos only); stapled at one corner. Produced and directed by Edward Mirzoeff, this was the third film transmitted in his television series Bird's Eye View (1969-71) surveying Britain from a helicopter, "a series with a new perspective on Britain" (Radio Times); broadcast on BBC2, Christmas Day 1969. Hovering over Devon, Betjeman recites to Berwald, Septet in B Flat Major, "Sidmouth is a sort of Cheltenham on Sea / The sea quite often as calm and gentle as the Thames. / Behind that comely row of sunny lodgings / Ornamental cottages were built, by men of means, / Out of sight of the water / But within sound of the shingle shore. / It was to Sidmouth that a younger brother of George IV / Came with his wife and infant daughter. / He was the Duke of Kent. / He despised the vulgarities of his brother's Brighton. / He liked the country and the rock-strewn shore. / One day in 1820 he got his feet wet / Here at Sidmouth, / Contracted pneumonia / And died / There / In that ornamental cottage he had built for himself, / His wife and daughter; / His daughter / Princess Victoria". [The camera is now over Osborne; the music changes to Prince Albert, Melody for Violin.] "Could it have been her cradle memories of this southern shore / That made Victoria, later England's Queen / Build with her husband, Albert, Prince Consort / This Italian Palace, Osborne, on the English Channel?". Seller Inventory # 30M100052

Bibliographic Details

Title: Beside the Seaside: [duplicated ...

Publication Date: 1969

Binding: No Binding

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition