Looking back over the REWIND screenings

Although the main batch of REWIND screenings are now over, there’s renewed life for many of the local archive films featured in the programme in the form of three compilation DVDs that will be showing as shorts alongside the main feature at Flicks in the Sticks venues from this autumn.

Clips have been edited with the help of Film and Video students at Hereford College of Arts into the following themes: Herefordshire Childhood, Herefordshire Work and Herefordshire Leisure. Each short film has voice-over narration by Amanda Huntley or Robert Dewar from Huntley Film Archives. Because of rights issues the DVDs are not licensed for sale or public hire but information about shows can be obtained from Flicks in the Sticks on 01588 620883.

In the meantime, here are some images from the screenings that took place from mid February to late March in thirteen venues around Herefordshire and Shropshire. In the end, most of the content was specific to the area (with a strong Herefordshire bias with slight variations between the north and south): cider, hop-picking, Young Farmers learning to judge bulls in Bodenham, rail journeys through orchards, past crooked houses, into the Malverns, the River Wye, shows, races, sporting events (an inordinate amount of them featuring motorcycles) and, of course, farming practices. Perhaps the most extraordinary footage of all (courtesy of Derek Foxton) was shot by public figure, ley lines theorist and photographic innovator, Alfred Watkins on a hand-turned 35mm cine camera. It brings to life the jostling crowds, monumental rides, freak shows and intense sociability of Hereford May Fair  in the 1910s as well as row upon row of troops marching down Eign Street on their way to Gallipoli via Oswestry on the 6th August 1914.

Each REWIND show was introduced by a member of the Huntley Archives team, Amanda Huntley, Robert Dewar and Caroline Jenkins, who ably talked the audience through what they were seeing, particularly the silent footage. Though the screenings were anything but silent. Audiences were encouraged to share moments of recognition with their neighbours and the shows took on something of the quality of a prayer meeting. A film of the Three Counties Show when it took place at the Leominster showground in more recent times (1950!) elicited quite a few identifications of acquaintances and relatives; someone in Kington even recognised one of the ushers at the show as his own father. The sum total of the information that the Archive now has about many of its Herefordshire films is now vastly greater than when the cycle of screenings started.

Volunteer archivist John Tallis at the Ledbury Market Theatre screening

Most of the shows were divided in two halves with a refreshment interval to give time to people to chat and to feedback to the speakers about what they had seen.

Huntley Archives' Robert Dewar chats to some ladies at Leintwardine Community Centre

On display in a cabinet downstairs at The Hereford Museum Resource and Learning Centre,  one of Alfred Watkins’ original light meters that the audience had just seen on screen .

Amanda Huntley introducing the films at Hereford Museum Resource and Learning Centre

At Ludlow Museum Resource Centre, an opportunity to view some lovely Super 8 colour footage shot in the 1970s at Cleobury Mortimer by Joe Bieli, a Swiss cine enthusiast who worked for Muller Engineering.

Audience at screening in foyer of Ludlow Museum Resource Centre and Library

One lady commented to another during the interval break at Burghill, “We have to come out here to the films to see one another.”

Caroline Jenkins from Huntley Film Archives introduces the films to the Burghill audience

At Ewyas Harold the afternoon screening was followed by a lavish tea for members of the audience.

Tea after the show at Ewyas Harold Memorial Hall

Quick run through at Acton Scott Working Farm barn before the audience arrives

A huge audience of 130 people at the REWIND screening at Lady Hawkins School Sports Barn in Kington. Another of the programme highlights was the wonderful material shot in around Kington for the Picture House cinema in town during the 1920s not least the noble sport of motorcycle football.

The sports barn at Lady Hawkins School in Kington fills up

Another large turnout for the afternoon screening at Fownhope Memorial Hall, hosted by the Local History Group, where Herefordshire home movies discovered as part of the Media Archive for Central England’s Full Circle project were also shown. One lady who’d already seen the show in Kington the previous week had come back for more! Her companion had travelled down from Stourbridge specially.

Two visitors to the Fownhope Memorial Hall Rewind screening

Many people who’d never been to a Flicks in the Sticks show before came out to the REWIND screenings because local people and places from their past were to be on screen.

St Peter's Church, Peterchurch Rewind screening

The two final screenings at Cawley Hall, Eye, were part of Borderlines Film Festival. The team at Eye (including Flicks in the Sticks promoter and REWIND volunteer archivist Anita Syers-Gibson) had assembled an exhibition of local photographs and cuttings including a programme from the 1950 Three Counties Show that was featured on screen and was invaluable in helping to identify some of the dignitaries in procession as well as some of the characters at the show.

Taking in the display at Cawley Hall, Eye, photo Lucie Kerley

Amanda Huntley introduces the Cawley Hall, Eye Rewind show, photo Lucie Kerley

At Moccas, as at Fownhope, there was a special guest, Dennis Hitchings who had appeared as a 16 year old tractor driver in the film Spring on the Farm, shot in 1942 on a farm near Ross. Questioned by Amanda, he said that he hadn’t been aware of  being filmed as he went rather seriously about his work. Now in his eighties he still drives tractors and is an expert on vintage machines.

Dennis Hitchings, who appeared aged 16 in Spring on the Farm, at Moccas Village Hall

“Dennis Hitchings…I was made quite speechless….there he was before us…. that rather stern looking…well, teenager, in a grown up suit suddenly standing there an old man….gosh, that is a moment I will never, ever forget….” (Amanda Huntley)

Tags: Alfred Watkins, archive, film, film archives, Flicks in the Sticks, Full Circle, Hereford, Hereford College of Arts, Herefordshire, Huntley Archives, Kington, Leominster, Shropshire

Shropshire archive screenings: calling Cleobury Mortimer residents

Do you remember the Carnival in Cleobury Mortimer in 1971? Did you  attend playgroup in the town at around the same time?

There’s a good chance of seeing yourself on screen at the REWIND shows in Ludlow tomorrow evening, Wednesday 23 February, 7.30pm at the Museum Resource Centre and Library, 7-9 Parkway Ludlow or at Acton Scott Working Farm on Tuesday 1 March, also 7.30pm.

There is some lovely Super 8 film of the Carnival and playgroup at Cleobury Mortimer circa 1971 that was discovered in the course of the project. It includes the parade, some very remarkable miniskirts, a tortuous wheelbarrow race, and some go-karting that totally ignores health and safety. And we have reason to believe that one of the children in the playgroup is Ashley Price, now a baker in Cleobury. The footage was shot by Joe Bieli who was a Swiss cine enthusiast who worked for Muller Engineering in the town. His widow is still alive.

All of the films in the programme have a Shropshire/Herefordshire connection – there is some marvellous colour film of the Three Counties Fair in Leominster in the early 50s – and there is a speaker from the archive, Amanda Huntley, who provides context and background to the footage and invites audience input.

Please note the telephone number for enquiries for the Acton Scott show has been incorrectly stated. The correct telephone number is 01694 781307. Apologies for misdirection.

Radio Hereford & Worcester coverage

Here is the Listen Again link from the Radio H&W coverage of the project on Friday 18 February at 1hr 15′ and 1hr 53′.

Available to listen until Friday 25 February.

Hereford Museum Resource Centre screening

The Hereford Museum Resource and Learning Centre is located in Friars Street off Eign Street, close to Sainsburys.

View map

There is no parking at the Centre itself except for a few disabled parking spaces so please use the car park at the Military Club (next to the bus depot) two doors down, alternatively the car park at Greyfriars via the Old Bridge.

The venue is fully accessible for wheelchair users and there are disabled toilet facilities.

Some of the scenes featured in the show were filmed in locations very close to the centre. Here’s a clue:

Tags: archive, film, film archives, Flicks in the Sticks, Hereford, Herefordshire

Date for REWIND archive screening in Kington

The date for the REWIND screening at Kington has now been set:

Wednesday 2 March at 7.30pm at Lady Hawkins School, Park View, Kington, HR5 3AR

Tickets £3.00, £2.50 Enquiries: 01544 231579

Archive screenings to tour Herefordshire and Shropshire

Screening locations and dates have now been arranged, see our flyer below or visit the Archive Screenings page

View this document on Scribd

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from REWIND

Our REWIND screenings in Herefordshire and Shropshire have now been arranged for February and March 2011, full details in the New Year.

In the meantime, we’d like to share with you Huntley Film Archives’ Christmas wish:

Tags: archive, Herefordshire, Huntley Archives, Shropshire

Sneak preview of Leominster’s retail past

We’re in the middle of finalising dates and locations for our fifteen special archive film screenings to take place early in 2011 through Herefordshire and Shropshire. Courtesy of Huntley Film Archive’s YouTube Channel here is one item that is likely to feature in the programme. Technology, fashion, glamour, fast cars, fine wines, succulent dishes, it’s all there for the taking in 1960s Leominster, according to the cinema advertising, anyway.

Unsurprisingly the shops are no longer as they were. Here is the previous home of Leominster Electrics, 35-37 High Street:

Meanwhile Longleys at 36 West Street is now a paint shop:

Do you remember seeing this reel in the cinema? We’d love to hear from you if you have any information relating to any of the ads or the people or businesses in them. Please add your comment or use the Contact e-mail address in the sidebar to get in touch.

Tags: archive, Babycham, cinema advertising, film, film archives, Flicks in the Sticks, Herefordshire, Huntley Archives, Leominster, Shropshire

Polish expertise

Teresa Cotterell, one of our volunteer archivists, is of Polish origin and speaks the language fluently. Her translation skills are proving invaluable, given Huntley Film Archives’ large collection of Polish material.

Among the first batch of film she has been given to catalogue is a 3 x 20 minute documentary reconstructing the Warsaw uprising of 1944 using actuality footage and archive photographs. The film was originally made for Polish TV in 1969.

Some of the newsreels used include graphic shots of corpses but close viewing is proving particularly harrowing for Teresa because one of her own aunts was caught up in the uprising. She’s been referring to Rising ’44, Norman Davies’s account of the dramatic 63 day stand against the Wehrmacht, for background knowledge, to help piece together the narrative of events.

Occasionally it’s difficult to work out exactly what’s going on purely from visual clues: soldiers training their rifles at something unspecified in the distance, parades, Young Pioneers delivering letters. One shot of aircraft flying over the city recurs several times within the documentary.

Detaching her synopsis from the voice-over of the ’60s documentary that explains what is unfolding on the screen has not been easy. Teresa has learned slowly and often laboriously to record what she actually is looking at rather than repeating what the commentary tells her she is seeing. The story of a boy who heroically made his way through a line of tanks in order to deliver a supply of hand grenades to the Resistance troops is a case in point; she wouldn’t have been able to infer this without the help of the soundtrack.

Logging a documentary about Raciborz (Ratibor), a fortified town in Silesia that she has visited, has proved not quite so traumatic. She has used internet research to fill in gaps and to check, for example, on the names of engineers who played an important part in the chemical industry of the town. She’s provided some additional background information in the résumé that precedes the main synopsis of the film in the Huntley database.

Though the first film took a long time to catalogue because of her lack of experience, the second took considerably less. Teresa says that she’s learning to be more concise and is becoming more confident about the level of  detail to keep in and what to leave out,”The more you do it, the better it is.”  Feedback from the Archives has been reassuring.

Instead of watching the DVD of the film on her computer screen and writing the synopsis out in long hand, Teresa has found it easier to view the archive material on her TV screen and type directly on to her laptop. She tries to set aside an hour and a half to or two hours each day, preferably in the afternoon or evening, for the archiving work. She says though, that once she starts, it’s hard to stop. The level of concentration demanded means that the task becomes totally absorbing.

Teresa has just moved from Credenhill, near Hereford, to Frome in Somerset where there is a thriving Polish community in Trowbridge, the town she was born in and where her parents settled, nearby. She reckons that many of her own and the older generation would be fascinated to be able to view some of this archive material.

Herefordshire C0uncil is planning a month-long Destination Poland season in the county’s museums and libraries in February 2011 and we’re hoping that one of the REWIND screenings will be able to tie in with this.

Tags: archive, film, film archives, Flicks in the Sticks, Herefordshire, Huntley Archives, Poland, Polish, Rising '44, Somerset, synopses

The film synopsis

Here  is Amanda Huntley, capturing on the hoof the spirit of some documentary footage from a shoe factory in Northampton.

Our trainee archivists are busy cataloguing their allocation of films at home, some on their second batch. The system works a bit like LOVEFiLM: they receive their 3 DVDs along with a SAE padded envelope for return.

The business of film cataloguing is a lengthy process, not an easy task at all. There are decisions to be made, not always straightforward, about what decade the film belongs to, what category it belongs to from a given list (and it can only belong to one primary category) and specifying the country of origin (nationality of filmmaker or production company rather than where the film was made), especially in cases where  country names have changed (Soviet Union/Russia, Former Yugoslavia). And it’s essential to be precise with the use of the definite and indefinite article in the title; one misplace ‘the’ can completely alter the meaning and give a false impression of content.

By far the most time-consuming element is the synopsis. At the training day, Amanda stressed the balance between supplying plenty of detail and over-egging the description of a film so that researchers are led to expect more than they’re actually given. Historical objectivity is also a must but also writing colloquially so as to convey the mood of a film. Amanda also urged the volunteers to avoid technical cinematic language in their visual descriptions.

Tags: archive, film, film archives, Flicks in the Sticks, Herefordshire, Huntley Archives, synopses