Country Life magazine is the star of a new three-part BBC TV series, Land of Hope and Glory: British Country Life focusing on a year in the life of the UK’s best connected weekly magazine. Watch the last episode on BBCTwo this Friday, March 18.
The last time we let
a film crew into our office was in 1997, and although we uphold the
strongest traditions, so much as changed in our world, we thought it
time to open the doors again.
The magazine, which
has been guest edited by The Prince of Wales, and is renowned for its
access to Royalty in times of national celebration, and also to the
grandest country estates and to the British establishment, is the
focus of the new BBC TV series.
Through the eyes of
editor Mark Hedges, his writers and the pages of the 119-year-old
magazine, the film follows the lives of people who live and work in
the countryside, from landowners, its famous girls in pearls and to
those whose livelihoods depend on the rural economy.
Land of Hope and
Glory: British Country Life will be broadcast on March 4, 11 and 18
on BBC2 at 9pm, BBC Two Wales at 9.30pm on the same days, and on BBC
Two Scotland at 9pm on Weds March 9, 16 and 23.
Read more at
http://www.countrylife.co.uk/tag/land-of-hope-and-glory-british-country-life#4ObRkLXU55vXEPRY.99
Country Life was
launched in 1897, incorporating Racing Illustrated. At this time it
was owned by Edward Hudson, the owner of Lindisfarne Castle and
various Lutyens-designed houses including The Deanery in Sonning.
At that time golf
and racing served as its main content, as well as the property
coverage, initially of manorial estates, which is still such a large
part of the magazine. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother,
used to appear frequently on its front cover. Now the magazine covers
a range of subjects in depth, from gardens and gardening to country
house architecture, fine art and books, and property to rural issues,
luxury products and interiors.
The frontispiece of
each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of
society, or, on occasion, a man of society: Princes William and Harry
have both been frontispieces in recent years.
In 2016, in its
119th year, Country Life was the subject of a three-part documentary
series made by Spun Gold and which aired on BBC Two on consecutive
Friday nights in March. The magazine has also celebrated its
best-ever selling issue - the double issue from Christmas 2015 - and
a 6th ABC increase in a row, which is an achievement no other weekly
magazine publishing original content can claim.
In 1997, the
centenary of the magazine was celebrated by a special issue, the
publishing of a book by Sir Roy Strong, the airing of a BBC2 TV
programme on a year in the life of the magazine, and staging a Gold
Medal winning garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. In 1999, the
magazine launched a new website.
In 2007, the
magazine celebrated its 110th anniversary with a special souvenir
issue on 4 January.[4] Starting on Wednesday 7 May 2008 the magazine
is issued each Wednesday, having been on sale each Thursday for the
past 111 years, with the earlier day being achieved using electronic
publishing technology.
The first several
dozen pages of each issue are devoted to colour advertisements for
upmarket residential property, which are one of the best known
attractions of the magazine, and popular with everyone from the super
rich looking for a country house or estate to those who can only
aspire to own such a property.
The magazine covers
the pleasures and joys of rural life. It is primarily concerned with
rural communities and their environments as well as the concerns of
country dwellers and landowners and has a diverse readership which,
although mainly UK based is also international. Much of its success
has historically been built on its coverage of country house
architecture and gardening at a time when the architectural press
largely ignored this building type. An extensive photographic archive
has resulted, now of great importance to architectural historians.
The other rural
pursuits and interests covered include hunting, shooting, farming,
equestrian news and gardening and there are regular news and opinion
pieces as well as a firm engagement with rural politics. There are
reviews of books, food and wine, art and architecture (also many
offers) and antiques and crafts. Illustrative material includes the
Tottering-by-Gently cartoon by Annie Tempest. The property section
claims to have more prime agents than anywhere else. In addition.
monthly luxury and interiors sections offer readers some informed
ideas about the latest in jewellery, style and travel, and interiors.
Recent feature
articles have included Charles, Prince of Wales guest-editing an
issue of Country Life in 2013, an historic revelation which revealed
the true face of Shakespeare for the first time in 2015, and in 2016
an exclusive on where the Great Fire of London really began in 1666.
Upcoming are a special commemorative issue in June 2016 on the
occasion of the Queen's 90th birthday, and a Best of Britain
celebrating the very best of what the United Kingdom has to offer,
from craftsmen to landscapes.
 |
Mark
Hedges CREDIT: DAVID DHILLON
|
Land of Hope and Glory: behind the scenes of Country Life magazine
Anna White
18 MARCH 2016 •
10:00PM
Maurice Durbin, a
big, burly dairy farmer from the West Country, desperately fought
back the tears in front of 1.4 million BBC viewers, at the news that
two of his cows had contracted bovine tuberculosis. The disease,
often carried by badgers, is a death sentence for the beasts and
condemned 3,382 cattle to slaughter in November (according to the
most recent figures).
This was a scene
from the three-part documentary series, Land of Hope and Glory –
British Country Life, which delved into the world of Country Life
magazine and the topics that it covers, and aired for the final time
tonight.
“It’s not just
about the financial hardship that TB can cause, these farmers love
every single one of their herd,” says Mark Hedges, the editor of
the publication, which has been running for 120 years.
Both the magazine
and the documentary offer insights into the beautiful and the brutal
reality of life in rural Britain, where only 18 per cent of the
population now live.
TB is not the only
issue facing our farmers, explains Hedges. The price of milk is the
biggest threat. At 9p a litre production costs now outweigh the
profits for the dairy farmer who is being squeezed by the
supermarkets.
If we lose the dairy
farmers we lose an entire ecology of fields and hedgerows that are
connected with the age-old industry, he explains. “And yet every
time a cow is milked the farmer is getting poorer.”
Hedges – a rather
fitting name for the editor of Country Life – has been running the
magazine for a decade and over the last six years sales have risen
year-on-year. This is no small feat in a media business where the
number of people buying hard copies of magazines and newspapers is
dwindling almost indiscriminately.
The 52-year-old puts
the growing revenues down to a dogged endeavour to broaden the appeal
of the publication and change the perception that it just caters “for
toffs” – Hedges’ words, not mine.
This means covering
the darker side of rural life in his pages, sandwiched between
stories on the upkeep of grand stately homes, such as Derbyshire’s
Haddon Hall which featured in a recent edition, or the history of
buttons. Its From the fields section is dedicated to farm land
affairs, such as the badger cull – designed to prevent the spread
of TB – and how to protect newborn lambs from marauding red kites
and hungry vixen this spring.
Construction in the
countryside is another hot topic for Hedges who started his career at
the bloodstock auction house Tattershalls, before moving on to write
for Horse & Hound magazine.
He campaigns for
sympathetic developments that mimic the different types of properties
typical for the different areas of the country.
“While we have to
build using breeze blocks [it’s cheaper and there’s a housing
supply crisis going on] developers can overlay the blocks with say
flint for Somerset, paint them Suffolk pink in Suffolk, or finish
them with a thin layer of limestone in the Cotswolds”. This is
Hedges talking as both a champion of the countryside and a qualified
geologist.
The spectrum of
styles and materials used by area vary due to the extraordinary
geology of this country, he says.
As an island [due to
plate tectonics] we have been scrunched and squashed hence the very
different landscapes, variation you just don’t see on the
continent. This has informed local building for centuries, which in
turn provides us with “a very special sense of place,” Hedges
explains.
This month’s BBC
documentary is not the only publicity success for the magazine, owned
by Time Inc media group, that Hedges has orchestrated.
In 2013 Prince
Charles guest edited one issue to mark his 65th birthday, which,
aptly, sold 65,000 copies, and was the best ever selling edition –
until recently.
It was trumped by
the 2015 December issue which boasted a snow-laden, wintry cottage on
the front cover which would have melted the hardest of hearts, and
65,500 were sold.
With demand
bolstered by the BBC Two documentary, which was directed by Jane
Treays, the talent behind the series Inside Claridge’s, will the
next few issues beat this record?
“I have been
completely overwhelmed by the response to the series on Country Life.
Many people have called for the programme to be made into a regular
series as it tackled issues and showed our glorious countryside in a
way that had never been seen before,” says Hedges.
“Sales of the
issue which coincided with the first programme were 35 per cent up
year-on-year and we have already sold hundreds of subscriptions. It
has been a great success.”
Land
of Hope and Glory – British Country Life review: where Girls in
Pearls meet dead cows
A
peek at the magazine’s bucolic vision of England – with posh
lechery, cake sales, old manor houses ... and a spot of dairy farm
doom
Lucy Mangan
@LucyMangan
Saturday 5 March
2016 06.15 GMT Last modified on Tuesday 10 May 2016 11.50 BST
As Sir Roy Strong
points out, the image of England presented by Country Life – a
magazine born out of the suddenly urbanised, Victorian middle-class
longing for a piece of the idyllic old country – is essentially
artificial. “A southern vision … gentle landscape … small
market towns … security, continuity.”
In the first episode
of Land of Hope and Glory – British Country Life (BBC2), a
three-part series that follows the monthly magazine over a year of
production, we saw plenty of people enjoying that vision. Simply
lovely upper middle-tons such as Judith Hussey and Malcolm Holloway,
preparing to open their beautiful garden and serve cake to the paying
public on National Gardens Scheme day (lemon drizzle or coffee and
walnut are THE cakes to serve, by the way. Not Victoria sponge. Mary
Berry, you have a lot to answer for). Philip Mansel reeling off the
history of his Georgian manor, Smedmore House, whose land hasn’t
been sold since 1400 and something. Flight Lieutenant Ian Fortune
successfully nominating his fiancee Ella Clark to be one of the
magazine’s famous Girls in Pearls..
But threaded through
it all is the real story, of real rural life more brutal than Judith
and Malcolm’s dancing lupins and penstemons would ever suggest.
Maurice Durbin has
been a dairy farmer all his life, like his father before him. He has
TB in his herd and hasn’t been able to trade properly for four
years. A hundred animals have been slaughtered. Without a determined
cull of the badgers, whose legally protected status has made the
amount of infection around irresistible, he believes, his livelihood
and the whole dairy industry are doomed. “All because,” says
Country Life’s editor Mark Hedges, urbanites won’t accept that
“this animal that people find attractive could do some damage”
and urbanites dominate the electorate.
“No one wants the
publicity … everyone’s afraid,” says Durbin, on the edge of
tears as he watches two more of his cows go off for slaughter. “No
doubt I shall have reason to be afraid now I’ve stuck my head above
the waterline. Big noises, big money backing that side. We got no
hope in hell’s chance.”
So the abattoir
lorries keep arriving. And the penstemons keep dancing.
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