Hovis

“T’was like taking bread to the top of the world – t’was a grand ride back though”.

The famous Hovis advert featuring a little boy pushing a delivery bike loaded with bread up a steep cobbled hill – and scored by the emotive sound of Antonín Dvorak’s New World Symphony – became an evergreen favourite which was voted the UK’s most “heartwarming and iconic advert”.

First aired in 1973, the advert was directed by Ridley Scott who would go on to fame as a director with films such as Alien, Blade Runner and Thelma and Louise.

Despite having a Yorkshire actor voicing the part of the boy looking back at his youth; despite having brass band music all over it; and despite featuring Yorkshireman Bill Maynard as the baker, the advert had nothing to do with Yorkshire at all and was, in fact, filmed on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset.

Hovis had been produced since 1885 – the name is short for Hominis Vis (meaning strength of man) – and the advertising agency wanted to stress that the product still had good old-fashioned values. They also wanted to say Hovis was “good for you”, but due to advertising restrictions, they had to settle for “As good for you today as it’s always been”.

There were other commercials in the same campaign – including one showing a soldier coming home from the Great War – but none were able to surpass the sight of young Carl Barlow (who grew up to be a London firefighter) coming out of the gleaming sun and up that hill.

The advert was shown for an astonishing 19 years.