Wales from the Air (1): Old Plynlimon

BBC Documentary from the 1960s

An extract from a BBC film about Wales, made in the 1960s. It is from a rarely seen documentary from the series:"A Bird's Eye View" which was filmed entirely from a helicopter. The approach was innovative in its day.

This first episode explores Wales as a land of mountains, consisting basically of the three great blocks of mountains described here, with Old Plynlimon in the center, where the great rivers rise - the River Severn, the River Wye and three other Welsh rivers.

The narrative is by veteran English journalist Renee Cutforth and is intelligent, moving and fascinating seen forty years later. Cutforth repeatedly refers to the people of Wales as foreign, which sounds extremely strange today. It is a reference made respectfully and not out of contempt but is a reminder of the changing perspectives of history.

Cutforth describes the wild nature of the Welsh countryside where one would not be surprised to come across the occasional Wizard or a Dragon or two, and his admiration for the Welsh way of life - man as part of nature, democracy with dignity.