Fed by Birds

Went to the Curzon Soho on Sunday for a screening of The Moon and the Sledgehammer, a 1972 documentary about a wonderfully strange family living in the Sussex woods. Full of the buzzings and rustlings of the forest, along with the sons tinkering with steam engines, the father playing the organ and musing - "Now you never want to take apart a magneto with a monkey in the vicinity. You can't rely on a monkey." In the Q&A afterwards the director Philip Trevelyan explained that Mr Page had worked as both an engineer and a circus clown, so these are obviously the words of experience.

Totally captivating view of a way of life that's gone - it doesn't close its eyes to the more unsettling aspects of the Pages' life, but always treats them with respect and listens to what they have to say - sensibly, since it's well worth listening to. It's just been released on DVD.