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Description
Graham Martin, Reader in Literature at the Open University, visits Eastwood, the small mining village outside Nottingham where D.H. Lawrence was born and grew up. Using the voices of Lawrence's old... friends, Willy Hopkin and Lady Cynthia Asquith, quotations from Lawrence's essays and poems and photographs of Eastwood miners in the early 1900s, Grahan Martin introduces us to D.H. Lawrence as a social critic. We visit the houses where the young Lawrence lived, the countryside around Felley Mill, where he used to go for walks with the Chambers family and the pit where Lawrence's father worked. We see the house of the local mining nagnatc and the school where Lawrence studied as a boy. We hear of Lawrence's horror at the ugliness of industrial society and how he came to revere natural qualities of life. How he, perhaps paradoxically, felt the life force at its strongest anong the miners working down the pit. How he came to loath the "madness" of money-making and how he felt the mine owners had betrayed the workers by condemning them to ugly surroundings when they could have helped then to sonething better.
Metadata describing this Open University video programme
Module code and title: A100, Humanities: a foundation course
Item code: A100; 35
First transmission date: 20-10-1971
Published: 1971
Rights Statement:
Restrictions on use:
Duration: 00:24:34
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Producer: Paul Kafno
Contributor: Graham Martin
Publisher: BBC Open University
Keyword(s): Brinsley Colliery; Eastwood; Lady Cynthia Asquith; Literature; W.E. Hopkin
Subject terms: Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert), 1885-1930
Footage description: Shots of Eastwood, surrounding countryside, pit gear, with over reading from autobiographical writings by D.H. Lawrence. Graham Martin describes Lawrence as essentially 'revolutionary'. He shows Lawrence's birthplace and describes the environment. Shots of Eastwood streets. The friction between Lawrence's parents is described. Shots of Lawrence family group, film of modern miners coming off shift and photographs of miners at the turn of the century Lawrence's keenness of vision and perspicacity is noted by contemporaries (W.E. Hopkin & Lady Cynthia Asquith) as is his love of the country and of walking. Shots of Eastwood countryside and of Chambers farm. Shots of second Lawrence home. Graham Martin links this love of countryside to the 'revolutionary' philosophy professed by Lawrence. Shots of birds, lizards and field mice. At end of sequence shots of pithead gear. Graham Martin describes the importance of the pit in the formulation of D.H. Lawrence's philosophy. Shots of Brinsley Colliery and numerous photographs of miners, above and below ground and their working conditions ca. 1900. Graham Martin describes Lawrence's hatred of the money ethic and capitalism as it showed itself in the 19th century. Shots of miners in informal groups. The Walker house, of Barber-Walker & Co., owners of the mines around Eastwood) contrasted with working class dwellings. Quotations from political writings by Lawrence. Graham Martin describes Lawrence's hatred of acquisition and his dislike of an age in which acquisitiveness was promoted above all else. Shots of modern Eastwood and of children playing in school playground. Quotations from D.H. Lawrence.
Master spool number: 6LT/70109
Production number: 00520_1335
Videofinder number: 2448
Available to public: no