ABSTRACT
The sentiment portrayed in the passage above resonates with the British psyche as much today as when it was written 80 years ago. The image it conjures up is of a timeless English village set harmoniously within a sunlit pastoral landscape, with a church, a village green, a farm, and a scattering of picturesque cottages. It is of course, an idealised village, but given its signifi cance in providing a symbol both of our history and our sense of identity, its image is deeply embedded in our national consciousness. In essence, it belongs to that category of the imagination that includes the myths of the golden age, the Garden of Eden and the rural idyll.
