Spinster Edith Holden (Pippa Guard) is an art teacher, somewhat aloof from her large and talkative family. Set in 1906, this dramatisation of Edith's personal reflections and nature notes is a real gem. Based on the bestselling book and filmed in rural Warwickshire, each episode covers a different month. January: Edith tries to patch up old squabbles at the Holden family reunion. Remembering happier childhood days when Emma, her mother, taught the family to draw and delight in nature, she makes an important resolution.
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00:00Gowan Bank, Olten, Warwickshire.
00:18Nature Notes for 1906.
00:21By Edith E.
00:30Holden.
00:46To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
00:50To slowly trace the forest's shady sea,
00:53Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
00:56And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been,
00:59To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
01:02With the wild flock that never need a fold,
01:05Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to me.
01:09This is not solitude,
01:11Tis but to hold converse with nature's charms,
01:14And view her stores unrolled.
01:17To be continued...
01:19To be continued...
02:20Oh, would you just take that to the drawing room?
02:32Oh, it's late.
02:35I know.
02:35I'm sorry.
02:36I'm sorry.
02:37You'd think this house runs itself.
02:45I don't want to do a thing, Lord.
02:47I'll just go and change.
02:49Bernard.
02:50What are you doing here so early?
02:52Hello, Edith.
02:53Not so early.
02:54Effie has arrived too.
02:55She and Violet are hanging decorations in the drawing room.
02:58Ah.
02:58Father, you're up.
02:59I was just about to call you.
03:01There's so much noise everywhere.
03:03Oh, I'll go.
03:05That'll be Evelyn.
03:08Happy New Year.
03:09Happy New Year.
03:10Where's Father?
03:11Evelyn.
03:12How is my darling girl?
03:15Frank looks after me.
03:17I know he does.
03:17I know.
03:18Happy New Year, sir.
03:19And a Happy New Year to you, my boy.
03:21How are you?
03:22It's a bit of cold.
03:22It is indeed.
03:23Yes, Evelyn.
03:24Ah, more helpers.
03:25How splendid.
03:27Oh, welcome.
03:28Well, please.
03:29Give them a chance to draw bread.
03:31Now, don't run away, Evelyn.
03:33I have Edith all the year round.
03:35I see so little of you.
03:37Tell me, how's the work going?
03:40Frank's work.
03:41I only help as I can.
03:42Father, if you only knew how desperately we're needed.
03:46I know.
03:47Times are bad.
03:49They're bad for everyone.
03:51But still, tonight we celebrate.
03:54Mm-mm.
03:55Come on.
04:00I'll never understand how you have the patience to sit here helping to look after Father
04:05when outside the whole world is in a ferment.
04:07Everything is changing.
04:08Oh, I'm content enough.
04:10I have my teaching.
04:11So does Violet.
04:11But that at least is quite right until women take their job seriously.
04:15Do you spare us the suffragette speeches tonight, Effie?
04:18Women must play their part, Bernard.
04:20You and Kenneth became directors of the company with Father by right.
04:24Why not any one of us?
04:25For myself, I want no part in business.
04:27We have seen its result in the South African war.
04:30The politicians collaborate, and we, the women, have no voice.
04:34As long as men maintain power, there will be war.
04:37War is big business.
04:38That's nonsense, Effie.
04:40There's nothing wrong with business.
04:43Where do you think all this comes from?
04:45How much longer, I don't know, unless we can make Father see reason.
04:48As you well know, Bernard, I will not see hard times taken out on the men who work for me.
04:54They have families, too, who need to eat.
04:57And little enough they have to do it with as it is.
04:59I can't see how it will help them if our firm goes under.
05:03Don't you understand?
05:04We aren't the only paint and varnish factory in Birmingham.
05:07The Cadbury family started a tradition in this city.
05:11Which would be splendid, Father, if we had their fortune behind us.
05:15Bernard, please don't.
05:16It is not a question of charity.
05:20It is a question of what is right.
05:23Well said.
05:24It's a cold month to be poor, Bernard.
05:26You mean well, Frank, but you don't have our problems.
05:29So please, don't interfere.
05:33I'll hear.
05:35This must be Kenneth.
05:40Kenneth.
05:41Violet.
05:41Welcome.
05:44He's come alone, I think.
05:46Yes.
05:46Happy New Year.
05:49Everybody's here.
05:50Hello, everybody.
05:51Happy New Year.
05:52Hello, Kenneth.
05:53Frank.
05:53Happy New Year.
05:58I'm so sorry I'm late.
06:01I had a last-minute invitation to speak at the city mission,
06:04and I really felt I had to go.
06:08Happy New Year, Father.
06:09Kenneth.
06:12So, the Holden family are more or less gathered in.
06:16Just like the old days, everyone together.
06:20It's the start of a new year.
06:23January, named from the Roman god Janus,
06:25who is represented with two faces looking in opposite directions,
06:31one perspective to the coming year,
06:33the other retrospective to the past.
06:36Evee, it's your turn next.
06:44You'll have to come and get me.
06:52I'm going to have another go after.
06:54Kenneth.
06:55Bernard.
06:57Evening.
06:58Evening.
06:58Just guess why.
07:00I knew we'd have to go in early as soon as we said we'd take her.
07:04Well, we'd better go anyway.
07:10Edith.
07:11Have you no sense?
07:12It's long past the time you said.
07:13Quick as you can.
07:29Into your nightclothes.
07:30Your mother's waiting.
07:31This was a disappointment to Ursula,
07:41but it could not be helped.
07:43And so she tried to put it aside
07:45and interest herself more than ever in her daily work,
07:49her children and her little cottage home.
07:52And her life of unselfish devotion met its reward.
07:56In the schoolhouse, she was fairly worshipped.
08:02Her teaching was so different from anything they'd received.
08:06Everything around her served as a lesson.
08:09Each event in the daily lives of the children.
08:12Each wondrous change in the daily life of nature.
08:15As little Mary Ray said to her mother,
08:18Miss Ursula makes all the world seem alive and beautiful.
08:26I can't help thinking of your dear mother.
08:40Only two years ago,
08:43she was sitting in that very chair.
08:47As Edith is now.
08:49It's very hard without her.
08:58Very hard.
09:00But she's still with us, Father.
09:02You know that.
09:04We all feel that.
09:08You're a good girl, Edie.
09:11Father,
09:12do you think she might like to speak to us tonight?
09:17It's not often she has us all together.
09:19Shall I try?
09:21Oh, yes.
09:23I'd rather not.
09:24Frank.
09:25You know I don't like playing with something
09:27that none of us really understands.
09:29Not playing.
09:30Of course it's for Father to decide.
09:33But it was Mother who taught us
09:34to find the spirit world perfectly natural.
09:38Well, if you must.
09:41Here.
09:41Edith,
09:54my own.
09:56How gladly now
10:14I come through your hand
10:16to welcome my loved ones.
10:19new thoughts
10:22awaken
10:22with the new year.
10:27There is
10:29so much
10:30grief.
10:32It is wicked
10:33to shut people out
10:35from the song
10:37of birds,
10:39the wildflowers,
10:41the wind,
10:42the wind,
10:44the wind,
10:47the changing of the seasons.
10:51Be
10:52of strong heart.
10:56Help
10:57one another.
10:58If your lives
11:02cannot burn
11:03like beacons,
11:05let them be
11:06as candles.
11:12Your
11:13wife
11:14and mother
11:16loving,
11:18loving,
11:20loving,
11:21loving,
11:21loving,
11:25loving,
11:27loving,
11:36loving,
11:37loving,
11:38loving,
11:39It's
11:40mother's
11:40handwriting.
11:43Well,
11:43they were always close.
11:45I'll turn the lights up.
11:48My own
11:49dear wife,
11:54my dear
11:55Edith,
11:55but we mustn't miss
12:02the new year.
12:03Oh,
12:04no,
12:05no.
12:08Hey,
12:08come,
12:09charge your glasses.
12:12Listen,
12:13everybody.
12:18Happy new year.
12:19happy new year,
12:21my darling
12:22dear.
12:22Oh,
12:23God bless you.
12:24God bless you all.
12:25January 1st,
12:43New Year's Day,
12:45bright and cold
12:46with a hard frost.
12:47Then came old January, rapid well with many weeds to keep the cold of May.
13:13Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell, and blew his nails to warm them if he may.
13:22For they were numbed with holding all the day an hatchet clean,
13:28with which he felled wood, and from the trees did lop the needless spray.
13:43Do you have a can? Yes, we will.
13:47Janevere, freeze the pot upon the fire.
13:51If the grass do grow in Janevere, it grows the worst for all the year.
13:55A wet January, a wet spring.
13:59What's this?
14:01Ah, badgers.
14:05Willy, come look.
14:08The blackest month of all the year is the month of Janevere.
14:15The blackest month of all the year is the month of Janevere.
14:43January 5th, great gale of wind and rain from the southwest.
14:48No.
14:54The sound of that is quite open, the elétorian is a lot to feed.
14:58The Hanyerei from the original the French moon.
15:02How'd you make the听?
15:04It's phil Prem.
15:08The leaves, which in the autumn of the year fall auburn-tinted, leaving reft and bare their parent trees,
15:28in many a sheltered lair where winter waits and watches, cold or steer, will be in drifts.
15:34And when the snowdrops cheer the woodland shadows, still the leaves are there, though through the glades the balmy southern air and birds and boughs proclaim that spring is here.
15:50Mother, what's this?
15:52Oh, it's a wild arum plant.
15:55We must remember where it is, Edith, and come back and sketch it, because it looks lovely when it grows and its leaves unfurl.
16:04January 11th. Visited a small wood on the canal bank to get violet leaves.
16:16On moving away some of the dead leaves lying beneath the trees, I discovered a wild arum plant thrusting its white sheath up from the soil.
16:25When I removed the outer cover, the pale yellow leaves with dark spots were quite discernible, rolled tightly round each other, and beautifully packed away inside the white skin.
16:40My reasoning was, though, if I could have spent quite an access to the native Hayır店, here in Forsyth, the faunalor, and here in Forsyth
17:02mummy my flower is dying never mind darling look at it hard and remember it in your heart
17:22let's concentrate on the drawing Edith learn to trust your eyes and put down exactly what
17:36you see not what you imagine you see
17:52good afternoon girls now I have decided this year to keep a nature diary
18:17and I thought perhaps you might like to try to see what I've done now today
18:31we'll start by drawing some old leaves I brought you some samples
18:39now remember we can all see more than we know
18:44it's a question of using our eyes and putting down exactly what we see
18:55and not what we imagine we know
18:58miss Holden yes is it true that you can see spirit
19:04well people say so
19:07my mother says so
19:11all right Meg that will be enough now we all have everything we need
19:16January 23rd sharp frost and a thick fog in the early morning
19:27the fog cleared off about 9 30 a.m. and the sun shone brightly went for a country walk
19:37every twig on every tree and bush was outlined in silver tracery against the sky
19:58some of the dead grasses and seed vessels growing by the roadside were specially beautiful
20:06every detail of them sparkling with frost crystals in the sunshine
20:10I saw great flocks of rooks and starlings down on the field and a pair of beautiful bullfinches in a hawthorn bush
20:23I saw great flocks of rooks and starlings down on the field and a pair of beautiful bullfinches in a hawthorn bush
20:33the mild winter has brought out the hazel catkins wonderfully early the small green flowers are fully expanded on some of the catkins and the pretty little red stars of the female flowers are appearing
20:40the green leaves are out on the woodbine too making little spots of green among the undergrowth
20:43the green leaves are out on the woodbine too making little spots of green among the undergrowth
20:47the mild winter has brought out the hazel catkins wonderfully early the small green flowers are fully expanded on some of the catkins and the pretty little red stars of the female flowers are appearing
20:56the green leaves are out on the woodbine too
21:07making little spots of green among the undergrowth
21:21what on earth is the matter
21:23well dear this isn't like you
21:27what can have happened
21:29it's Kenneth and Bernard
21:32they were over here this afternoon
21:35talking to father about the works
21:37I could hear the two of them ranting away
21:40and father's just too old now
21:44why can't they leave him alone
21:48isn't the drawing a resting now
21:53I wanted him to go to bed but he wouldn't
21:56you've been reading mother's book again
22:16why do you want to upset yourself like that
22:19things do seem to have changed for the worse don't they
22:23I can't help thinking about the old house
22:27no worries then about the factory
22:32oh this house is quite adequate for us now
22:34I know
22:37I know
22:38but I cannot help remembering better times
22:43when your mother was still with us
22:45January 27th
22:49primroses, polyanthus, winter aconite, mazerian and snowdrops are all in flower in the garden
22:57every mild morning now the birds are singing
23:05and they continue more or less throughout the day
23:08January 29th
23:19ploughing and hedging and ditching are going on everywhere
23:22today I picked some daisies in a field
23:25and saw some euling blossom
23:26daisies
23:29ye flowers of lowly birth
23:32embroiderers of the carpet earth
23:34that gem the velvet sod
23:36child of the year
23:38that round dost run thy pleasant course
23:41when days begun
23:42as ready to salute the sun
23:44as lark or leveret
23:45thy long lost praise
23:47thou shalt regain
23:48nor be less dear to future men
23:51than in old time
23:52thou art not vain
23:54art nature's favourite
23:56all seasons shall be sweet to thee
24:10whether the summer
24:11clothe the general earth with greenness
24:13or the red breast sit and sing
24:16betwixt the tufts of snow
24:18on the bare branch of mossy apple tree
24:20while the nigh thatch smokes
24:22in the sun thaw
24:24whether the eavedrops fall
24:26heard only in the trances of the blast
24:29or if the secret ministry of frost
24:32shall hang them up in silent icicles
24:35quietly shining to the quiet moon
24:38ploughing and hedging and ditching
24:52are going on everywhere
24:54this has been
25:08a wonderfully mild January
25:11thank you