For the past thirty years, I’ve been chasing the answer to this question: ‘What did our ancestors know living so close to the Earth that we have lost?’ This journey has led me to explore my ancestral lands, tracing back seven generations, which I began earlier this year.
Last night, beneath the dancing aurora borealis, I created this short film about my recent visit to ancestral lands in Northamptonshire. A 30-mile detour brought me to the village of Helpston, where I immersed myself in the life and landscape of John Clare and the impact of the Enclosures two hundred years ago.
I would love to hear your thoughts. If you are inspired to comment below, I would be delighted.
Nicola
Thank you Nicola for creating such a heartfelt and poignant film. It moved me greatly to hear from the grass roots how much our ancestors lost through the enclosures. I'll be sure to watch again and again.
Thank you so much for your note here Tracey. I am touched that my film has had this impact on you, thank you 🙂
Nicola your film really touched me and I am quite tearful from watching it. We hear about the Enclosures and all that in history but your film was so personal and I really felt it. I don’t have any more words but will watch it again and again … it’s poignancy making it so real and thought provoking 😔 Thank You
Wow Anny, thank you so much for sharing the impact my film had on you. I am really touched. When I set out making it, I had no idea I would be able to put together something so impactful. Thank you.
Thank you so much Nicola for a beautifully made film. I can now look up John Clare. What struck me is the sadness of future generations not knowing the landcape and how important we acknowledge and heal this. How the landscape nourished the people and in turn reciprocated by the people. The open fields you walked on I imagined them as they were full of more woodlands and streams for communal grazing much like Scottish crofters. John Clare's statue I agreed rather sad and poignant that erected on a filled in dug over pond. This is something I have always felt as a young child the landscape of England felt at odds large open patchworks of fields or in my case childhood in the Northern parts of England heavy industry steel works steaming towers etc. When we would drive to my grandmothers and saw what my Dad referred to as the "margarine fields" the bright yellow rape fields that was what I thought the "country" was. Never realising that butter being expensive and margarine being cheap product for town dwellers. You have brought up much and inspired me with your generational map.
Thank you Judith for sharing your story here and explaining how my film has impacted on you. I am so grateful for your note. What a name – margarine fields. It bowled me over walking around Helpstone having read how it used to be through John Clare’s poetry. It was a real lightbulb moment. I love too how you liked that generational map. It is an idea I have had for a few years, and then it all came together when I bought a cork board and some pins!
I loved your piece here! I've always been interested in the Enclosures and as I'd not heard of John Clare, I thought I'd do a bit of online investigating. And I found this which I thought might be of some interest to you.
https://johnclarecountryside.org.uk/
I hadn’t heard of that project – thank you for sharing the link Caroline. And for your kind feedback about my film! I am so touched and glad I have introduced you to the work of John Clare. Someone introduced me to him a while ago and I am so pleased they did! His poetry is an incredible window into the past.
Beautiful and so relevant to now . Thank you . It mirrored my own journey to Suffolk in September .
Thank you Sally and that is really interesting to hear how it is comparable to your trip to Suffolk. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Nicola , thank you for this beautiful evocative film. I have to go back many, many generations to find rural ancestors . Most of my ancestors were Londoners. However the call of the wild is strong in me and I wonder at what point my ancestors lost their deep connection to the land. Having said that the passion for gardens and gardening remained showing that it is deep in our souls to love nature.
I currently live in the country in East Anglia and am daily frustrated that there are so few places to walk which are not public. Like John Clare I walk with fear of being challenged for trespassing.
I have been fascinated to read your story Juliet, and how far you have to go back to find rural ancestors, and how the passion for gardening was still passed down the line. I spent a week in Norfolk earlier this year on an ancestors sleep-out trip and noticed this too.
Fascinating, Nicola, Thank you for such a thought provoking piece. And sadly the fight still continues as wealthy landowners try to force the people off our last remaining open spaces on Dartmoor. ….
Thank you so much for your note Pam, and yes you are bob on. Sadly the fight continues…
A beautiful and evocative film of a gentler time when we played and celebrated and lived life to the full. I have visited in the footsteps of John Clare too. Such a beautiful soul. Thank you for the time you took preparing and sharing this film.
Thank you Fiona, so you have visited Clare country too. I love to think you have been there as well and I really appreciate your note here, thank you 🙂
I know nothing of the enclosures, I've never heard of them, its something we weren't taught at school. I'm no great poetry fan, but feel I will now have to know more about John Clare and his works, and of course what the enclosures were all about.
Thank you for sharing all this.
Thank you Sandra. I have loved reading your reflections here. I can recommend his biography, that gives an excellent insight into his life and struggles with the Enclosures. My ancestor sleep-out project will eventually lead to a book I am calling ‘Severance’. It will be about the impact the Enclosures had our our ancestors and how this is still playing out in our lives today. It is a way off yet though as I still have just under half of the locations to visit and sleep in yet. I am so encouraged by your note that you would like to learn more. I was taught about the Enclosures at school, but only in the sense that it was a way of making the land more efficient, to feed the growing cities. We weren’t too about the suffering.
I cried watching the film.I always feel something is missing from our landscape of wide open fields. Thank you for introducing me to John Clare. Thank you for making the film. Well done.
I have just skipped a beat reading your note here Susan, thank you. I feel the same. It was as if a penny dropped walking around that landscape.
That was beautiful Nicola. The Enclosures were brutal and changed this country forever. Lands and livelihoods were stolen, with no recourse to justice. And in places on our precious planet, it's still going on.
I am inspired to read the poetry of John Clare # what a prolific writer!
Thank you for sharing this.
I was inspired with the thought of going back 7 generations, to see where and how my ancestors lived.
Beautiful film so thought provoking. thank you for sharing it.
Thank you Steve, this is so lovely to hear 🙂
Thanks for sharing your film & ancestral story with us.
Divide +Conquer… That was one of the many ways that our heritage/hiraeth, history & ancestry was taken from 'US' & more power to the rich and powerful.
As we know it still goes on, but social media has its plus side – it brings history back to us through communities like yours.
Through festivals and gatherings we are slowly becoming stronger and more connected. Closer to the Earth and our heritage. Thanks again x
Trina
You are so right, that by festivals and gatherings we are becoming more connected. This is so important. And social media does have its place in bringing us together. Thank you so much for your reflections here Katrina, you have summed this up beautifully.
Thank you Nicola, I enjoyed that. Particularly liked the lovely statue of John Clare and will b e researching his poetry thanks to you.
This is great to hear Barbara. Yes, that statue is very good isn’t it. I don’t think I have been so captivated by a statue before like this. The look in his eyes is incredible.
Thank you Nicola for this thought provoking film. This whole subject of land ‘theft’ and displacing of the people who lived on it, is close to my heart. With the clearances up here in Scotland and the enclosures in England, the wealthy stole the land and people’s livelihoods, displacing them and mostly subjecting them to a life of poverty, with migration to towns, cities or across the Atlantic. The injustice is heartbreaking.
The damage caused by this greed and injustice by the privileged few, the aristocracy and landed gentry, is a bitter reflection on society being a pawn to the monetarily powerful. The poor and displaced would have been devastated and the scars left on them and subsequent generations are huge.
The lessons from nature that they would have been in tune with, was ripped away and has been lost, to the detriment of themselves and all of the world around us. We need to return to that natural state, regulated by the seasons and listen to the wisdom that all of nature can teach us, both seen and unseen. Thank you again for reminding us of this and helping us to get back to what is natural, right, and important
You have explained here so beautifully how I feel, thank you Lynne. The injustice is heartbreaking isn’t it and the scars I believe are still within us. And the healing is in returning to nature. Thank you.
Wow, that was really interesting, emotional and poignant still in this day of control and management of our land by the few. Thank you 🙏
Thank you so much Carolyne 🙂
This was lovely and so informative and interesting. I didn’t know much at all about the enclosures and their impact or about Clare. I also love the concept of visiting one's ancestors lives and locations. I’ve been researching some of my ancestors and their stories and it’s really impacted my outlook on life, but I hadn’t considered visiting where they lived: I shall definitely do that now!
This is lovely to hear Helen. I think putting ourselves in the land where our ancestors are from brings a new depth of understanding about ourselves. I can recommend noticing what dreams and thoughts you have in the run up to a visit and when you are there. This has taught me so much about myself and the patterns (helpful and unhelpful) that have been passed down the family line. I am excited for you 🙂
Beautiful and so true for many of us with lost ancestors. I’m from Leicestershire and I always feel that is where my heart is deep in that beautiful countryside. That’s where I belong
Thank you Andy, I can relate to that feeling too in certain landscapes.
Thank you so much, Nicola for sending this to my inbox via your newsletter. A beautiful film made with such care, brought a heaviness to my heart at all that was lost, and also brought hope that we can share such stories to help us understand the traumas in our ancestry.
Thank you, thank you.
Sandra, I have been moved by your words, thank you. I felt the same walking around that landscape and then putting the film together. I also share your hope. I think sharing ancestral stories is so important. Thank you.
This is poignant and a touching reminder of the traumas which we have inherited. There is nothing new. We are going through tumultuous times now and it helps to know that it has all happened before and that we survived. I am so grateful to you. Well done for making the film and your writing.
Oh thank you Cynthia, you have summed up exactly what I am hoping to convey through this film and my ancestral sleep-out project. I am really touched by your words.
Thank you Nicola. The strips left by the cultivation for food by the people can still be seen in our village. Sobering thought that it was taken away from them.
That is really interesting that the strips still remain. Which village Andy? It is so sobering isn’t it.
So inspiring, thank you Nicola. I'm just one of the hordes who will now be reading about John Clare, and carrying always a greater understanding of the impact of the enclosures.
Thank you Jules, I am so delighted to hear this 🙂 on all counts 🙂
Ah you talk so well about the enclosures our ancestors were the clearances and prior to that highland heritage forbade
Now we have so called progress of management superstore led land farms
Now we have tourist money led campervan trolling our lands ah the right to roam scottish countryside
Ah progress give me quiet solitude as I write my poetry as I write my songs my self
Your words really strike a chord Ronne, thank you. So many changes for ‘progress’ but questionable progress for sure.
Really inspiring Nicola, listening to you talk about ‘John Clare, Poet of the People’ and the’ Enclosures’ was really interesting. It highlights what our ancestors went through when their land was taken off them…
Thanks Katie, I am so pleased my little film was inspiring and how it highlights what happened back then during the Enclosures and how our ancestors were impacted.
Dad and I have really enjoyed the film. You explained clearly how lives were forever changed by the Enclosure Act. Now a forgotten way of life.
Your presentation is better than TV professionals. Well done.
Hello mum and dad! Thank you so much for your comment here. I am really touched that you enjoyed my film and I have a flare for presenting. Thank you!
I really enjoyed this film, Nicola. I don't have ancestors in this region to my knowledge. (Ancestry research never ends) Just like yourself, I love to visit their homes, villages, graves where possible. I want to go up to Scotland and stay a few nights each in Gifford and Drem near Haddington. I've visited a few times but never stayed in the actual villages.
This project of yours is wonderful and you must get so much pleasure from it. Will you be showing more films? I hope so. This one was very interesting. Thank you.
I stayed in Gifford ah the goblin ha and lived in east lothian for some years before returning to oban and west highlands and grew up in Borders
Yes I have been a gypsy in modern world but still I write drop me an email if u can
I love that line ‘been a gypsy in a modern world’ 🙂
I will Julie! I have discovered I rather love making little films so I will be doing more. It is harder in some ways as it takes me out of my thought process when I am there a little, shooting the B roll, but not too much to be detrimental.
You are bob on – Ancestry research never ends! I like this project as it is bounded, looking at just the seventh generation locations and visiting them. It was tricky going back that far in some cases as it is before the census’s but I figured most lines out after spending many evenings on Ancestry last winter.
I love that you visit Scotland to be with your ancestors. I am not sure if I have Scottish roots, and if I do they date back to pre 18th Century and have no way of confirming this. I love Scotland though and it invokes a particular feeling when I go there – it is like a homecoming.
I always think the past lingers within us, when we feel drawn to places or landscapes, it’s the past speaking to us. When I moved to South Wales the Monmouthshire and Brecon was a place I found that I was drawn to, it became my sanctuary! I’d never seen a canal before! Years later I discovered my great grandmother was a boat woman, one of the last. She lived, worked and breathed the canal before progress went to the rail and road. The past was speaking to me, as it is to you.
This is fascinating Hannah, thank you for sharing your story. You are bob on, the past lingers within us for sure and speaks to us when we visit the landscape.
Hi Nicola, thank you for your moving little film about one of our most important poets who documented this terrible phase in our social history. Imagine what he saw and heard before these tiny meadows were destroyed. I've just returned from Norfolk where enclosures also changed the land use forever and where local biodiversity is so so low. Thank you. X
Hi Mary, thank you so much for your k ind words. He really is one of our most important poets -I feel that too. I went to Norfolk on an ancestral sleep-out trip in March and that was my experience too. I found a fascinating insight into how the enclosures came about, beginning in Norfolk because of the turnip. I will be making a little film about that too sometime 🙂
This is a lovely film which captures the flavour of your ancestral journey. I love John Clare, and you've reminded me to go back to him. Thank you for sharing all this with us.
Thank you so much Mary. That is lovely to hear how I have captured some of the essence of my ancestral journey. I love that you love John Clare too 🙂
That was a lovely film, I will definitely be looking up John Clare. Its so fascinating to think about how historic happenings affected our ancestor's!
Thank you so much for your kind words about my film. It is so fascinating isn’t it!
What a beautiful, thoughtful and moving film, Nicola. I am aware that not only did the people lose their land and livelihood, but the land lost the people who had tended and cared for it – and for the soil – for generations. Thank you for sharing and introducing me to the poetry of John Clare and his firm of activism 🙏💗
What a great reflection back, considering the land lost the people caring for it. Thank you Alison.
Golly Nicola so interesting & devastating at the same time. It’s heartbreaking to think of the changes back then but also now as it’s not improving. It always hits home, when I see footage on tv from aerial view, how desolate our farmland often looks 😔. But what an adventure you’re on! Such an important message you’re getting out to people, you’re inspirational for sure. I feel your passion & I really want to immerse myself into something, just not sure what yet. Thank you for sharing this 😊
Thanks Gaynor, it is so heartbreaking isn’t it. It struck me at a whole new level walking around that farmland that day after reading John Clare poems and seeing it through his eyes. I am excited you are wanting to immerse yourself into something. Do you remember our ‘study’ journey circle? That might help you focus in on what to study by speaking with your Sprit Teacher. I’ll post the link here for you in case you want to take a look: https://thebuzzardtribe.com/journey-circle-october-2021-spirit-teachers-seeking-and-study/
That was beautiful Nicola. Very moving. Thank you!
Thank you so much Marcella 🙂 This is really lovely to hear
I like your thoughts on John Clare ,I haven’t traced back my ancestors to that period. My sister has been checking out my dad’s side but I would like todo mums side. Gareth’s and Ramsdales in Yorkshire. Granny was a ramsdale in touch with sufferagett leadership via her maiden aunts. Grandad was a gardener for the” big house”. Too late for questions now. .we were in Scotland a few weeks ago when we met a lady scout who said they still have a right to roam in Scotland unlike England. Not a good idea if walking through the farmers yard or getting too close to crops but otherwise the sense of freedom is immense. I had not heard of John Claire thank you. Xx
Thank you for sharing this Pat. Yes, Scotland has a real sense of freedom doesn’t it that we don’t have in England. That is exciting to hear you have sufferagett links.
That was so moving nicola. I do so enjoy your work and it really opens up an area of my history I never knew about. I'd never heard of John Clarke but I now feel inspired to learn more. Thank you
I haven't yet watched the film, Nicola, but I feel impelled to respond immediately. I have been a member of the John Clare Society (JCS) since the 2000s when I volunteered as a reader-onto-tape of the archives of the academic 'Journal of the John Clare Society' for a blind member of the Society.
The John Clare Festival in Helpston, on the weekend nearest to John Clare's birthday (July 13?) is a complete delight, and a joy to attend. It celebrates music, natural history writing, dance and history as well as Clare's poetry. The current President of the JCS is Carry Akroyd artist, whose magnificent prints include her own tribute to John Clare and his landscapes.
The other connection I have with Northamptonshire is that many of my father's ancestors (farm workers andl leather workers) were born there. I am continuing to find out more about them, especially the generation of leatherworkers that passed through Cambridge on thir migration from Lincolnshire to Northampton. I go dancing (5-rhythms) in the part of Cambridge where they lived in the 1850s.They include my dad's maternal grandfather, Benjamin Haynes, and his parents Samuel and Sarah… Magical.
Would you like me to email you the info I have about that family? Maybe we overlap!
Oooo. I have popped the John Clare Festival in my diary. I hope to make it one year! Thank you so much for the recommendation. So, you have been on to him for many years then Kathy. I am late to the party. He is so inspirational isn’t he. I am captivated by his story and his poetry.
And you have Northampton connections! My ancestors were right over the other side of Northampton so I don’t think there will be a link…
I lived in Northamptonshire for a few years. It is known as "The Rose of the Shires" for good reason, with very beautiful countryside. I was prompted to find out about John Clare after seeing an exhibition of artwork inspired by his poetry at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery. He had a troubled life and never got the recognition for his talent as a poet in his lifetime, unlike his contemporaries Keats and Wordsworth. Your film strikes just the right note, Nicola, and has encouraged me to read his work again. As I have plenty of "Ag.Labs" in my ancestry, I am also researching the reasons why so many of them left their homes in the mid 1800s, exchanging village life for the East End of London.
Thanks for your note Betty and sharing this. Have you read his biography? It goes into great detail about how tough his life was and is a brilliant read. I have lots of Ag Labs in my ancestry too and within 2 generations they had almost all moved into the cities and had very difficult lives by the looks of things. I have read a lot around the reasons why over these past 6 months and it is tough reading tbh. One of the best books I have read is the Village Labourer by Hammond and Hammond. If you haven’t read it I recommend it as it explains what happened.
I am delighted to hear my film is on point. Thank you 🙂 I surprised myself how it came together and the message it conveys.
I’ve an old (pre motorway) atlas of Britain and I see your ancestors’ village was in the ‘Soke of Peterborough’. I had ancestors in a village called Weldon about 15 miles southwest of Helpston. They stayed on until the latter part of the 19th century when they relocated to Birmingham for work opportunities.
Hi Valerie. Ah, I didn’t have ancestors in Helpston, but across Northamptonshire. The nearest were 30 miles away. My ancestors went the other way in the mid nineteenth century to London as yours went to Birmingham. I have wondered why they went south as Birmingham was closer…
Hi Nicola, thank you for sharing this wonderful video about John Clare and visiting the places of your ancestors. Love your description of him as a poet of the people. Desperately sad what happened and how it still impacts our way of life today and how we access (or don’t!) the countryside. Wonderful to have his house all to yourself for a few hours!
Thank you so much for your note here Catherine. Yes, one of his titles is The Peasant Poet but Poet of the People came out of my mouth in the moment and I rather liked it. It is so sad isn’t it, and the Enclosures are still impacting on us today in so many ways as I am finding out as I deepen into my ancestral sleepout project. I couldn’t believe I had his house to myself for all that time! Gold 🙂