Rev. Robert Jones Quotes in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995)

Rev. Robert Jones: Have you no shame?

Morgan the Goat: No... I can't think where I've left it!

Rev. Robert Jones: My text for today comes from Psalm 99, Verse 9: Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his... holy... hill.

[Anson and Garrad have explained they must go and calculate the height]

Thomas Twp Too: And how d'you know later?

Reginald Anson: Well, w-we've made, um, we've made measurements with those two hills, and w-we already know the height of Newton Beacon and Whitchurch Hill...

Thomas Twp: But how were they measured?

Reginald Anson: The same way, by comparing them with other hills.

Thomas Twp Too: But who measured the first hill?

Rev. Robert Jones: [whispering] God. God, my boy. God.

Morgan the Goat: I don't want Ffynnon Garw to be on the map because we begged for it, because we, we-we pleaded. No. If Ffynnon Garw has to be a thousand feet, then I say let it be a thousand feet! Put 20 feet, that's all we need, a 20-foot tump and we have our mountain!

Jones the JP: I'm not sure how legal that is...

Rev. Robert Jones: Yes, or ethical...

Morgan the Goat: Legal? Ethical? Wh - how legal was it to say that a thousand feet is a mountain and 984 isn't, uh? Uh? Do we call a short man a boy, or a small dog a cat? No! This is a mountain, our mountain, and if it needs to be a thousand feet, then by God let's make it a thousand feet!

[last lines]

Grandfather: And so it was that Betty and Anson stayed the night on Ffynnon Gawr. Now you know what the Welsh say about people who stay on mountain peaks at night, don't you? They become poets, madmen, very very wise, or...

[band playing, procession, cheering]

Grandfather: And when they descended, it was to announce that Ffynnon Gawr was indeed a mountain, of one thousand and two feet, and that they were engaged to be married. Yes, it was an odd courtship, but one befitting a man who went up a hill but came down a mountain.

[cheering]

Narrator: And should you think this is just a shaggy dog story told by a senile man to his impressionable grandson, I'd ask you to come to South Wales, to the village where I was born, and as you drive north from Cardiff, look for the first big hill. Not just a hill, but a mountain, and the children of the people who built it. However, just before this film was made, the mountain was remeasured and found to be nine hundred and ninety-seven feet, thus the mound had settled back into a hill.

Rev. Robert Jones: [from the grave monument] A hill?

[sighs]