On Mon, 25 May 2009 14:27:04 +0100, Stephen Furley
wrote:
On 25/5/09 13:52, in article ,
"Tony Polson" wrote:
Strange to think that some of the younger cyclists featured in the film,
say around the age of 20, would now be in their mid-70s.
I always think the same thing when watching old documentary film. To me,
the '40s seems old, but the 50s seems recent. In the '50s the GPO
introduced the new 'modern' 706 telephones. The railways were being
modernised, Britain was starting to recover after the long years of war, and
the decade started with the Festival of Britain which always seemed to me,
though I'm too young to remember it, to be the start of the new Britain.
I remember it. I was only four and my father took me. While most of it
has gone from memory after all these years, there was the Post Office
railway, a Britannia (William Shakespeare) in a special finish for the
festival, the giant kaleidoscope in the Shot tower, the Skylon, the
Dome of Discovery etc.
The Britannia was extra special because we'd seen it a few days
earlier from the allotment in the park between Harrow & Wealdstone and
Kenton being pulled on its way there.
My fading memory tells me it was in some kind of highly polished brown
but nobody has been able to confirm this.
Part of the festival was the amusement park at Battersea - with the
Emmet Railway. I loved this. I think the amusements stayed there after
the festival was over because we went there quite often.
When I was at school we used to have Wednesday afternoon film shows. After
a short tome I found myself running these, and later programming them.
There was a combination of films which I'd run every year or two; the first
was a colour film, I can't remember the title, about the Festival of
Britain, and I'd follow this with the Dennis Mitchell BBC production
'Morning in the Streets', from 1958. It was absolutely stunning to see the
difference between the Festival, at the start of the decade, and the images
of Liverpool, Stockport and Salford, depicted in 'Morning in the Streets',
almost at the end of it. I'd not seen the film for many years, but last
October while in Bradford for a few days I went to see Terence Davies' new
film 'Of Time and the City' at the Pictureville. I saw the film again a
week or so later, at a screening at the Phoenix Cinema, East Finchley,
attended by Terence Davies. Some of the archive material he has used in his
film was taken from 'Morning in the Streets', I recognised it at once,
though the music which Terence Davies has used with it in 'Of time and the
City' gives it a very different feel.
The BBC have recently put the whole of 'Morning in the Streets' on their web
site, it's not a very good copy, but it's still well worth watching. I wish
the BBC would release the film on DVD, or even better , someone would donate
me a nice 35mm print of it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/conte...tory_morning_o
n_the_streets_feature.shtml
The link to the film itself is just above the second picture.
Recently, one of the schoolgirls seen in the film has been in contact with
the BBC; she must be close to retirement age now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/conte...ce_morningonth
estreets_feature.shtml
Many people have never seen this film, the BBC seldom show it for some
reason, but it's a real gem, and those that have seen it remember it, even
decades later.
Such an interesting period, the '50s.