AV News 190 - Novembert 2012
Our English Tour
Jacques van de Weerdt & Jean-Paul Petit
England is a huge garden!
And, if it is viewed from above, like from an aircraft, we distinguish a myriad of
little squares surrounded by hedges. There is the English country. Millions of little
houses, surrounded by greenness and, in their centre, are the houses. And that
is the miracle, the dream of all the urbanists of all the times: building cities in the
middle of the country! English people achieved this dream!
On that point, we Continentals, are forced to admiration. In a country, two
times smaller than France, with the same amount of inhabitants, we felt to be in
a garden, more: an English garden! We are less proud of our countryside, without
hedges, naked … Here, on the island, green is a real concern.
We are driving along hours and hours. At first, on the motorways. Next, on the
roads. They are narrow, sinuous, without shoulders. We don’t understand. Each
curve is a threat because we don’t see the car arriving in front. Hedges are
touching the asphalt. England is green, right, but it kills its pedestrians and
cyclists.
We crossed the Channel to be
judges at the RPS festival of
Cirencester. Then, the same RPS
invited us to show a lot of our
diaporamas before four photo
clubs. We are proud and happy.
We are going to drive 2,000
Kilometers from Paris. Jean-Paul,
his wife Denise and I. Our only
link with the world: the i-phone of
Jean-Paul.
We are informed that JP Guibal is dead in France. He was a good AV-worker,
loved by everybody. That is the silence in the car. And, driving on, we think of
'Motorway' from another beloved AV-worker …
Our English friends asked us our impressions of their country and to write an
article on the differences with the Continent. The first thing which touched us, is
the cult of memory. More than us, English people cultivate remembrance. We are
impressed by the great
number of 'memorials' which
are spread all along the
country. And, too, by the lot of
diaporamas produced on
these subjects (Think of the
RPS Great prize: 'For the
Sake of Example').
Maybe the explanation is a
medley of patriotism and
conservatism. English people
like their country and revere
their dead. More than us.
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