Seeing the British landscape through the author’s eyes

What were the forces that moulded the likes of the Brontës and Jane Austen? A new documentary explores the effect the physical and social landscape had on our great female writers, reports James Rampton

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The Birds is one of the most disturbing movies Alfred Hitchcock ever made. And that’s saying something. Even now, I cannot see a passing flock of seagulls without recalling with a shudder the utterly petrifying scene in which Tippi Hedren’s character Melanie is dive-bombed in a phone booth by malevolent seagulls.

But the inspiration behind the Daphne du Maurier novel – on which the film is based – is little known and highly fascinating.

Mariella Frostrup, who presents Britain’s Novel Landscapes, a new More4 series about the influence of the physical and social environment on novels by great British female writers, takes up the story: “I hadn’t realised that The Birds was inspired by du Maurier’s experiences during the Second World War. Back then, she lived in Fowey, which had become this completely fortified harbour town. It was a target for the Luftwaffe because they built boats there and there were so many munitions around.