Survivors - 2.13 New World

The survivors' amazed reaction to the appearance of the hot-air balloon is beautifully done. Imagine having resigned yourself to a lifetime of making soap, and then suddenly seeing something that might mean you were wrong after all. You would indeed just stare at it with a wild surmise.

Not everyone reacts positively to the idea though. Pet has learnt the lesson of self-sufficiency all too well, she's afraid of being let down by civilisation again. And she doesn't welcome the prospect of civilisation being restored in a disciplined Nordic way. I must say part of me agrees with her, if I'd got used to living without government and money I probably wouldn't want them back. Then again, what happens when they run out of needles and repairable tools and wellingtons?

Charles and Jack have a conversation that also makes these two opposing points. 'I've never considered myself a drop-out,' says Charles. I suppose people would retain some of their basic political outlook after society collapsed, even when there was no politics to attach it to. (Though he has previously been shown to have been very into self-sufficiency well before the plague. I suppose drop-out is one of those irregular verbs: I am going my own way, you are eccentric, they are a drop-out.)

This is though, if you'll excuse the expression, quite an uplifting episode. For once they're sufficiently well-supplied from their own hard work to have the leisure to sit and debate the future direction society should take.

Charles is getting a lot more Welsh as the episodes go by. Especially in that bit where he's talking about the South Wales coalfield.

I haven't just been interested in chronology btw, but also geography. Greg says in Lights of London that Whitecross is in the West Country, but perhaps that was deliberate obfuscation, because I'd already twigged it was near the Welsh borders somewhere. Now, in this episode it's said to be 4-5 hours by balloon from Hereford. Balloon flight is feasible in winds of between 4-10mph, so it must be 16-50 miles from Hereford. And on the day the balloon arrived Greg said the wind was westerly, so it must be east of Hereford. But, Alan and Melanie expect to cross the Wye on their way to Chipping Campden, and there is nowhere that far east of Hereford and west of the Wye. The best match is the big loop of the Wye near Foy, and even that is barely 9 miles from Hereford.

Dating: haymaking is still in progress, I think it can't be very long since the previous ep, late June or July.

Updated to say: I gather that some people consider the 'West Country' to include Herefordshire, so maybe Greg was speaking truthfully. To me though the West Country doesn't extend north of the Severn.