John Gillam
The Call of England

“A writer on England today addresses himself to a wider and a more intelligent public than ever before”, wrote H. V. Morton as he set off from the outskirts of London on a road trip that gave rise to his cult 1928 travelogue The Call of England. The reason, he suggested, was that “never before have so many people been searching for England” — the motor car, Morton suggested, allowed his countrymen, for the first time, to truly survey the land for themselves.

England, so considered, need not be the stuff of tales and legends. Yet today’s viral social media representations of this land’s decline — again more prominent than first-hand experience — have become an uncomfortable counterpart to Morton’s writing. Both offer a fragmentary account at best, and are designed to seduce their audiences with their narratives. 

What would a journey in search of England reveal today? A hundred years after Morton’s odyssey, the Northumbrian John Gillam set out to retrace the writer’s steps. The Call Of England does not offer consolation, but neither does it elicit despair.

In The Call of England, a new, six-part video journal, Gillam captures a country that is unrecognisable — not only removed from its myth but also changed more profoundly than even sensationalist accounts suggest. How should today’s “intelligent public” respond to such images? Do myths from twenty, let alone hundred years ago help us in searching for England? 

What Gillam found on the road — in the monastic ruins of Yorkshire, the post-industrial towns of the Midlands, and the marshes of Athelney — is that England is harder to kill than its eulogists suggest. The inheritance which Morton identified is still present; the question is whether anyone is willing to receive it.

Join Gillam, the host of the Thinking Class podcast, for a special preview screening of The Call of England and inter-generational discussion with David Goodhart and Harrison Pitt.