Countryfile Royal Special was something of an eye-opener about the Queen and what she does for the country, review

Benji Wilson
Updated
Adam Henson with the Queen’s dairy herd of Jersey cattle at Windsor Park - WARNING: Use of this copyright image is subject to the terms of use of BBC Pictures' Digital Picture Service (BBC Pictures) as set out at www.bbcpictures.co.uk. In particular, this image may only be published by a registered User of BBC Pictures for editorial use for the purpose of publicising the relevant BBC programme, personnel or activity during the Publicity Period which ends three review weeks following the date of transmission and provided the BBC and the copyright holder in the caption are credited. For any other purpose whatsoever, including advertising and commercial, prior written approval from the copyright holder will be required.

If I come back as a cow – and I plan to – I would like to come back as one of the Queen’s Jersey cows. This Countryfile Royal Special (BBC One) was full of fascinating facts for that next royal-themed pub quiz, but none more so than the news that the Queen’s cows sleep on waterbeds.

As Matt Baker, Anita Rani and Adam Henson took us round Windsor Great Park, there was plenty to impress, but nothing like the cowshed. It wasn’t a cowshed, it was a moo-tique hotel. It had an automated cow brush for bovine titillation, the cows were milked as and when they felt like being milked and the floors were cleaned by robots. Viewers were given access to what was described unforgettably as “a majestic creamery”.

Matt Baker riding the Duke of Edinburgh's carriage through Home Park at Windsor - Credit: BBC
Matt Baker riding the Duke of Edinburgh's carriage through Home Park at Windsor Credit: BBC

You get the picture – this was documentary as panegyric. The through line was that the Queen is a countrywoman at heart and, with two further hour-long films set at Balmoral and Sandringham over the next two weeks, we shall be seeing a lot more of her in her natural habitat.

As telly, you could take it as you chose: it was so relentlessly positive that it felt a little like one of those boastful films they show on the back of airline seats before you land in a new country.

Anita Rani on the Windsor Estate - Credit: BBC
Anita Rani on the Windsor Estate Credit: BBC

On the other hand, anyone in the “What has the monarchy ever done for us?” camp might have found themselves a little taken aback by several things on show for which we have to thank the Queen. Cleveland Bay horses were about to die out as a breed when the Queen bought a stallion in the Sixties with the sole purpose of keeping the breed alive (they pull the carriages now). She reintroduced deer to the park in 1979; now they are thriving. Windsor was at the forefront of battling Dutch Elm disease, which was so catastrophic to the British landscape in the Seventies and Eighties. The Queen actively supported British farmers during the foot and mouth crisis, and it hasn’t been forgotten.

These things probably mean very little to staunch urbanites but, as the programme showed, to people in the countryside they mean a great deal. For all its obvious puffery, Countryfile was still something of an eye-opener.

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