Our Country is a documentary masterpiece, and one curiously neglected : an alchemy of moving poetic commentary by Dylan Thomas, captivating photography by Jo Jago, and painstakingly apt, lyrical musical composition by Alwyn. Its celebration of landscape and countryside, of industry and labour, and of the spirit of the people is a model of inspirational propaganda. “Our Country”, writes John Ackerman, “has a pastoralism that is both refuge and touchstone of innocence and joy, in contrast to war's constant present and threat.” Alwyn put it more simply: “Our Country - most lovely of wartime documentaries.” Directed by the talented John Eldridge, originally for distribution within the USSR and the USA, it was one of the last of Donald Taylor's productions for Strand and the fulfilment of his ideal. It was, he said, to enable people “to see on the screen the fine part their native land is playing in helping to win the war” and to “make people all over the world … appreciate for what we are fighting”.

It was widely released in the United Kingdom, with premieres at two London West End cinemas, and it aroused fierce opinions. While some saw the film as “boldly experimental … exciting and provocative”, others regarded Thomas's poetry as a “monotonous … barrier between spectator and screen”. Whatever one's view of the film's achievement, it was unique to its medium - the cooperative creative product of artists from diverse fields.

A documentary in the genuine Grierson tradition of ennobling the ordinary lives of working men and women, Our Country narrates an impressionistic journey across wartime Britain taken by a merchant seaman on leave after an absence of two years and seeing as if through the eyes of a foreigner. The actors were non-professional. David Sime, the merchant seaman, returned to active service after making the film. His girlfriend was played with conviction by seventeen-year-old Molly Staniland after Eldridge spotted her in a Sheffield street. An ordinary chap, and an ordinary girl, with whom audiences could easily identify.

The actors did not speak, however, for in place of dialogue was what Alwyn called “the verbal rattle and poetic fervour” of Thomas's commentary. “‘But who is to speak it ?’ ‘Dylan, himself !’” suggested Alwyn, “‘He has the loveliest voice I know.’” In the end it was left to professionals.