Here is the clip. If you’d like to hear more about the filming, and the things left out, please press READ MORE.

The songs sung were: My Son John, Harvest Song, and Sorrows Away.The first 2 are available on the CD album, and the second may be on our next album (more said soon).

The show seemed to be not so much concerned with secrets, so much as ‘interesting’ things and places in Britain, pointing to and glancing at some fascinating layers of landscape and history.

The first episode was called ‘Crowded South’, and they asked us to come make a ‘postcard’ film on the South Downs. They didn’t mind Holly puppy being on stage too. We thought it a grand opportunity to talk more widely.

The day was very tiring, as every shot had to be taken from various angles, so that we appeared to have multiple cameras, when there was really just one.

The crew of 2, the cameraman and director, were very good at bringing information out of us. The director was ever so encouraging, in nodding and smiling, waiting for our answers. She reminded us of a really good primary-school teacher, always positive and encouraging, and we felt a sort-of early-school compulsion to volunteer the right answers, and win approval, which helped probably.

They were kind, it was the cameraman’s birthday, and they bought us lunch, and of course it was educational to find out the processes of making such a thing. They are hard-working people, and stayed out for hours longer than they get paid for.

Unfortunately, much of the good stuff was cut. We really feel the need to fill in the detail as to what did not make the final cut, as there is much more to this landscape than we edited to say. This is some of the info that didn’t make it in:

Stick-fighting at an ancient 5-way footpath junction, a hundred yards past Hampshire’ hollow-lanes;

Nature Plasters (greater plantain leaves chewed and applied to wounds, covered with intact leaves, and tied around with grasses – also exciting for children);

Silverweed sock stuffing sessions, to keep hot feet cool and blister-free;

Ghost-stories – we had stayed late in East Meon village on our last walk, talking with the manager of the pub. At about 1:30 am, having seen the church get locked at 8pm, we tried the main door anyway, on a whim. It swung open, and we were immedaitely struck by unseen presences, the certainty that something big, and powerful, was there in the dark. The font was all lit up in the moonlight, and was far more visilbe than it had been in murky daylight. We knew the font was a thousand years old, made of Tournai marble, a gift from William the Conqueror’s grandson. It showed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and their expulsion for being naughty. We saw the iron clasp on one side of the top, once a way of shutting the font, which was kept full of holy water, preserved with salt and maybe herbs (horsetail?). This water was apparently often stolen, by ‘black-magicians’, so a thick wooden board was attached to the iron clasp, and locked tight. When Puritans came to rule Britain, they deemed that there was no such thing as Balck Magic, so the covers were denounced as superstitious and ungodly nonsense, and removed. Anyway…we were inside the church, which should not have been possible, as we saw it getting locked. And the hackles on our necks were rising horribly, and we both felt the growth of panic, a fight or flight, screaming fear approaching fast…so we sang a song, called the Leaves of Life, the day being round Easter time, and the song surely suitable. Instantly calming, like butter to a burn, we crept off 5 minutes later, with a sense of peace won, and slept on the hill above the church. In the morning, the caretaker told us he had the only key, and it was locked when he got there in the morning, so he had no idea how it could have gotten unlocked between 8 pm and 8 am. So that was a story we told the tv people. But it did not make it onto the show;

There was also an obscure disused military complex (HMS Mercury), a building that’s technically a boat, at one point a top-secret communications centre, and now strangely desolate and tumbledown. We reckon there’s tunnels in them there hills…;

And East Meon itself, we told the camera, was once a hugely busy place, a thriving centre of trade. It was built in the middle ages in an early grid shape, indicating plans to expand it. A large population, good farming, an accessible river, and 6 water mills, made it a likely bet for growth. But it never happened, and a village it remained. Perhaps this is because of the Church, who owned the village for a long time, under the Bishopric of Winchester. It was once King Alfred’s village too. And it was also once the land of whoever lived on Old Winchester Hill, an iron age hillfort on the South Downs above. It was also once the land of the Bronze Age burial mound diggers, whose barrows are found within the hillfort, and even for the people of Neolithic times, whose oval barrow is the earliest sign of inhabitation in this area;

There was even the Sustainability Centre, arguably the most important living event in the area, with woodland burials, loads of courses and books and yurts and ecological work galore. There was a new Ben Law classroom just built, which we itched to go and see. But time, we were told, goes fast when filming…

None of this cool information could get put in. 2.5 minutes is not long, and the show was more about lovely images and quick hints, rather than the sharing of intense detail we had naiively anticipated. They had only an hour to cover a third of England. And we were just guests, it was not our party. So we were really grateful they let us on at all, and didn’t make us look too silly (as any editor could do). They even sent us a little card afterwards.

We were also pleased that the programme starred Simon Carley Smith, the canoeist at the start, who’s an old school friend of ours. So that was a good thing.

And although we realize we forgot to mention the CD album, or the website, it seems that people can find things all on their own. So thank-you too.

Thank-you Ginger.

Tools required, are:

And that’s it.

with Barney Spoon.

This winter, we were visited by a man named Barnaby, who calls himself Barney (though we named him Barn).

Barn makes spoons, with style and profound expertise. He taught us a lot, which is still slowly sinking into our craft consciousness.

We filmed Barn’s spoon chronicles, in order to spread the knowledge as he himself shared it. Here are the four short films, detailing exactly how to make a great spoon. It’s worth getting through to the final video, as it features Barney playing a song on his new spoon.

To add to his glory, Barney is currently on a long walk about Britain, living outside, and trading spoons for hospitality and a bit of food. Where he has reached by now, we cannot say, because he is wise enough to not be encumbered by a website. If we can get updates on his progress, they will be published here.

So, for the videos. Please enjoy them, and tell all your green woodworking friends that the definitive guide to spoon-making is, at last, online. Hurrah for Barney.

Barney Spoon part 1

Barney Spoon part 2

Barney Spoon part 3

Barney Spoon part 4 (the musical one)

Excellent.

Hopper had already taught us the rudimentary techniques of hurdle-making (CLICK HERE), and in this video he shows us how to split hazel rods.

As well as the practical techniques of splitting, Hopper also shows how to measure the height of a tree, with a stick. Interested?

There’s also an interesting discussion, on recycling, universities, and Martians. And there is a very blunt billhook, the inadequacy of which led Hopper to loan us a nice sharp replacement.

The video might take a short while to buffer, but please be patient. Hopper is worth the wait…

It is a series of clips from our first days in the woods last November, when we trolleyed in all the canvas, hand-tools and books that we felt necessary.

The track soon bogged up thickly. And once we’d done the many runs each, to bring in all the bits, we found a shortcut through a sheep field that would have saved us hours.

The film also shows the first part of building the A-frame, which was our immediate shelter while the main house went up.

And the fiddle tune was recorded by a doctor in a stone circle in Cornwall, on an earlier walk. It is a Breton tune, called (trans.) “the jumping chicken”.

This fantastic little animation to the song “Staines Morris”, was made by our friend Rufus Herbert.

A short video of Ed, Will and Ginger singing in car park of the Royal William public house, on the outskirts of Stroud. July 2009.

The songs they sing are, however, strange and slightly fearsome, but so it goes.

They told us stories of how their boyfriends had dumped them for taller blondes…and these were girls of 9 years old. It was an education to learn where youngsters are these days, and truth be told, they are just where we are.

Big up the youth.

We are here singing at the Faversham Hop Festival, at a gig in the Gulbenkian, Canterbury, supporting Chris Wood, and at a Christmas party.

These songs are being sung in times between walking, in our home territories.