I, too, was looking forward to 'Lark Rise to Candleford' - but found it much too 'Laura Ashley' for my liking. Unfortunately, I only caught a couple of episodes of 'Cranford' - but that was much more convincing.

Watching 'LRTC' I got this sinking feeling that the old world of rural England is now, more or less, forgotten. I'm sure that someone will remind me that it was nasty, brutal and smelly (I've no doubt that it was!) but there was something rather admirable about it - particularly the labouring folk who worked so hard for pitiful wages and, if we think of them at all now, are dismissed as 'yokels' or 'bumpkins'. Their 'Old World' (by which I mean their inner lives, rather than their material circumstances) has been swept away - much like the once beautiful English countryside has been swept away.

If you want to understand them, and to understand where many of us came from, then you need to read the books of Flora Thomson, Richard Jeffries, W.H. Hudson (my personal favourite), Thomas Hardy, George Bourne, John Clare etc. And, of course, we should not forget the beautiful music that they left behind.