Boy on the Bike was one of five adverts that Ridley Scott directed for Hovis in the early 1970s.

[3][1] The advert shows a boy (played by Carl Barlow[4]) pushing a bicycle laden with bread up a picturesque English cobbled street.

A voiceover, presumably of the boy at a later age, nostalgically describes the trip, while a recording of the largo from Dvořák's Symphony No.

[2][5] Despite the common belief that it was set in the North of England, the advert was filmed on Gold Hill, Shaftesbury in Dorset; the voiceover is narrated in a West Country accent.

[8] The advert's popularity has been attributed to its nostalgia for "wholesome images of village life" as well as Scott's visual direction.