THE refrain that "things ain't what they used to be" is often treated as a joke these days, but anyone watching a new video about a Cotswold village is bound to be shocked by the realisation of how true it really is, writes Andrew Flaxman.

On the one hand, the village of Blockley is much as it always has been - honey-coloured buildings lining its streets and, compared to many other places, a very low level of late 20th century development in the centre of the village.

But as the producers of Blockley Past and Present illustrate so graphically, there is so much that has changed.

The video is the work of several village residents, particularly amateur video enthusiast Barry Keeley, who produced it, and Roger Harvey, helped by others such as local historian John Malin.

It charts the history of Blockley through the 20th century, mainly by taking photographs from the early 1900s and then comparing them to scenes shot from the same vantage points today.

It is remarkable how little the buildings in the High Street, Dovedale End, Bell Lane and surrounding streets have changed. Yet the early photographs show a village packed with shops selling everything from bread to photographic equipment.

Whereas today the village has just one shop, Post Office Stores, in pre-war days it was home to dozens of specialist traders, as well as many 'front room shops', where householders simply used their front rooms to sell a variety of goods.

"It has completely changed over the years," said Mr Harvey. "It really was a self-sufficient village back then and must have been a hell of a place 100 years ago, but the shops started dwindling away back in the 1970s."

Even some of the later post-war photographs featured show a bustling shopping centre. Among the last shops to go were Balhatchet's butchery and the Station Road mini-market, which both closed in 1988.

The video works its way through the village street by street with a voice-over by Mr Keeley, pointing out various buildings and points of interest and the minor changes that have taken place in the street scenes. Often the raised bank footpaths were much lower at the turn of the century than they are today, but what is most striking are the streets themselves.

In the 1900s they were unmetalled roads, with cowpats splattering them, and the only visible signs of movement are pedestrians (girls in pinafore dresses, boys in breeches and flat caps) and the odd horse and cart. Today, of course, the streets are surfaced and covered by lines of parked cars. Villagers themselves feature strongly with descriptions of many of the shops and the characters who ran them over the years. There are interviews with two older residents, Maurice Balhatchet, and Jack Gill, who lent Mr Keeley and Mr Harvey many of his hundreds of old photographs to use in the video. Their words help to add a touch of colour to the black and white images.

There is also a section on the seven pubs that were once in the village, five of which have now disappeared, and on the village fire service and some of the fires they dealt with. There is even a shot at the scene of the tragic accident in 1922 when a charabanc crashed on Greenway Road, killing seven people. The video ends closer to the present day with the floodlighting of St Peter and St Paul's Church, which was done to mark the new millennium.

Mr Harvey said a video on the village's history was something he and Mr Keeley had had in mind for many years. "We have always wanted to do it as a record of the village," he said. "It is something we had talked about for many years."

The video costs £12. Mr Harvey said: "We will give half the profits to the Antiquarian Society as the past of Blockley, and half to the school, as the future of the village." Anyone wanting to order a copy can contact Mr Harvey on 01386 700617 or Mr Keeley on 01386 700996.