LANCASHIRE on FILM:
An evening of gems from the
NORTH WEST FILM ARCHIVES at
MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

The Dukes, Lancaster
Sunday 27 February 2005 at 7.30pm

Wonderful shots of the Lancaster and Morecambe area
- as it was -
all made up into a visual feast
for a hungry and marvellously responsive audience

There was a capacity audience for this journey down time and across Lancashire at The Dukes, and what a thrilling adventure it was. Watching footage from all but a century ago we were treated to a pre-World War I police sports day at the Giant Axe (Lancaster City FC), 1950s bathing beauty belles from Morecambe's Super Swimming Stadium, two-way traffic and red double-decker buses on Skerton Bridge, underground loos in the Market square, the Virtual-Lancaster office and much more.

The very mixed audience, from young people and students to the twenty-plus members of the Marsh's excellent Local History group, middle-aged couples, their elders and grandparents - and even a clutch of academics from the University – was spellbound throughout.

You could hear the gasps from different parts of the audience when familiar places came up on screen. We were sat at the front near the Marsh lot, and the Morecambe crowds were further back. You could even tell that there were folk there from outside Lancaster – we heard a cheer when Darwen was mentioned in the second half.

Part 1 - EDWARDIAN ELEGANCE to WORLD WAR II

There was an excited buzz in the air as the packed audience took its seats and waited eagerly, almost like children, for the show to begin. Geoff Senior from the North West Film Archive (NWFA) introduced the evening's screening of "a specially-created package of films for us,' carefully transferred to DVD. He explained that the Archive has over 31,000 items it its care, and thus holds one of the biggest collections of film in the UK, outside London. Prestigious, yes?

Thomas E Scholey, of Imperial Studios, Lancaster
Sod London, we thought – we want to see Morecambe and Lancaster. So without further ado, we were straight into the first group of three films, made by Imperial Studios – ie local entrepreneur Thomas E Scholey Watson & Co of Corn Market Street, Lancaster. We saw a sequence of three shorts entitled Local Events, 1914. How we spent and celebrated our spare time, usually communally with and within our local community, in the not-so-distant past has very little to do with modern concepts of ‘leisure'.

LEISURE

The first of these – and it went right to the emotional jugular – was a Police Sports Day on the Giant Axe field, just opposite your correspondent's abode, and now the home of Lancaster City FC. Behind us were sat the twenty-plus members of the Marsh History Group, with their redoubtable leader, Dr Sharon Lambert, and their concentrated fascination was palpable and audible.

Men in shorts
Against the familiar background of the (formerly Castle) railway station and the gas holder, numerous constables and their superiors in inelegant and unflattering sports strip ran, threw, chased and – weirdest of all – wrestled, in what looked like a cross between Greek tragedy, Sumo wrestling and a charity clinch-athon. It's probably illegal now … Women and children were noticeable by their relative absence.

Next of the trio was Boundary Riding, or processing round the edge of the borough's borders. There were shots of the Canal, and scenes (I think) on or near the Marsh, out in the ‘hills' (could it have been Bailrigg?) and what appeared to be Scotforth. Robed aldermen on horses led the way, but the whole town joined in en fête just for the fun of it. As we did when we were kids – any excuse to get out and have a laugh. It were cheaper and ‘ealthier than binge-drinking, anyroad …

The third featured Caton Gala, which sported its village's ubiquitous Carnival Queen with attendants, the fancy-dress procession of decorated bicycles with their lavishly-costumed riders and, of course, ahem, the vicar, mayor and bigwigs. Somehow class distinction was still there, but this event was one of thousands up and down the country which brought the whole community together in a colourful, significant presence. The main ingredient was, naturally, fun.

FORMALITY

Legal …
The next film (again from Scholey) of Lancaster Assizes (thought to be from c1911) showed the town in more sombre light. The pomp and circumstance attached to the event – Lancaster was a principal venue for the county's mobile justice system from 1176 to 1971 – seems anachronistic to us today, with shades of Coronation- or Royal Wedding-style adulation and hype. But, again, that didn't deter the townspeople, who made it their business to ogle the processions between Castle, Priory and Shire Hall, and to have a good day out at the same time.

Programme Note:
Geoff Senior provided a helpful and interesting background narrative for each film or sequence. The music throughout these black-and-white silents was tastefully chosen and, in the best pre-talkies tradition, highlighted vividly the changes in the action on the screen.

Both the selection and ‘placing' of the music and the finished high quality of the excellent footage were the work of the Archive's Technical Officer, Mark Bodner. The Archive clearly takes great pride in its curatorial and its conservation work. Their website is well worth a visit for cinephiles, historians, those with ‘Civic Pride', and the curious lay person alike.

Military …
The Archive's own carefully-complied notes explain the next short film, Morecambe Volunteers In Training, again from c1914:

"The film begins with shots of Morecambe Volunteers preparing to go to war. A group of women are seen unloading blankets at a collection point outside the Art School [the Art School on Poulton Road, Morecambe which in latter years was the Adult Education Centre, run by Lancaster and Morecambe College] and the 5th Kings Own Lancaster Territorial Army mobilise at Bowerham Barracks [now St Martin's College] before leaving for Castle Station.

There were also some fine shots of the volunteers drilling and parading up and down Morecambe's sea front – with more dogs chasing around the officers and their recruits than you have seen at Ardwick Stadium on a busy summer's evening.

The film concluded, the notes explained, "with footage of the Mayor and Mayoress standing on the platform bidding farewell to soldiers who are seen leaning out of their railway carriages, waving handkerchiefs at their family and friends.'

Moving, isn't it? As our proud local lads marched down into the station, a tall, oddly-shaped electric tram made its way along the Meeting House Lane railway bridge (they only ran in Lancaster from 1903 to 1930). The footage took on an added poignancy as the train left (I think from platform 3), as many will recall that so very, very few of those callow youths would return from the physical and political squalor of The Somme and the other fields of death.

Parliamentary …
To help us move on in time and get a clearer notion of change, the programme was arranged in chronological order, and the next film can be precisely dated – to 13 March 1931. This saw the ceremonial opening of the new Sunshine Slopes at Heysham [The Sunshine Slopes were on the new Sandylands Promenade which was built between in 1930 the Battery and the Grosvenor Hotel] by the Cabinet Minister Margaret Bondfield (gosh, yes a woman MP - seventy years ago before the age of Blair's Babes!).

In fact Margaret Bondfield (1873-1953) wasn't a local MP. She had been MP for Northampton since 1923, and in 1929 she became Britain's first female Cabinet Minister. At the time of this footage she still held the position of Minister for Labour in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government. A few months after this film, along with over 200 of her fellow Labour MPs, she lost her seat in the October 1931 General Election.

This rather daunting-looking lady (no spring chicken, and certainly no lissom, carefree suffragette) duly performed her civic duty by cutting ribbons etc, but – no – the new waterfall would just not switch on. So she tried it again. No, still wrong – we can't see you from that angle, ma'am. Please do it from the other side …. yes, that's better – but still no cascade. Denis Nordern would have had a field-day.

Nothing was going to spoil the fun of the day, not even the multitude of mayors with chains of office and their consorts. The Rose Queen [sic] was duly crowned and the maypole dancing vigorously enjoyed. The audience, which the camera was careful to show us, looked somewhat bored, and – eek, those fashions! Overcoats, cardies, collars and ties and – scariest of all - the women's hats which resembled skin-tight shower caps, Prussian military helmets or refugees from the Southport Flower Show (watch out for that event later).

HOLIDAYS

The next film took us to the last days of peace before World War II. Entitled In The Lake District, and made in 1937, this was a shameless plug to attract tourists to the area – just so long as they came by train. The then London Midland & Scottish Railway, like its three competitors, had a keen eye for publicity, and where better to begin strutting its stuff was then brand-new Midland Hotel at Morecambe, built by – yes, you've guessed - the railway. Owning Heysham Port, it had something of a monopoly in these parts.

The beautifully-placed shots of the brilliant white pristine building were surreal. The hotel stood alone in almost dream-like serenity, with no distraction of building around it save the road, the beach and the broad sweep of the uncluttered promenade under a brilliant sky.

At this point of the evening the Morecambe presence in the audience became more audible – the "oohs' and "ahhhhs' of delight pinpointed them to the other side from where we were. Heysham was next, with its railway-run port, and fine shots of the Duke of Rothesay which served on the Belfast run between 1928 and 1955, apart from some War service (see my review on the recent centenary of Heysham Port).

The prospective holidaymakers were next tempted with railway ‘caravans', or camping coaches, a once-familiar sight up and down Britain (your correspondent can just remember them at Hest Bank …. ). The one on this extract was at Coniston, with mother making the tea, oil lamps, climbing down a ladder to wander blithely across the main passenger line that passed outside the ‘caravan'. They just didn't care about safety in those days.

A few moments depicted Lancaster as a worthy place to visit whilst in the Lakes – with its "ancient Castle and quaint streets'. That got a guffaw from the whole audience, which by now was utterly spellbound and having a whale of a time [There was an isolated mistake here when a short piece footage of Penrith was shown, not of Lancaster]. Aira Force, Ullswater, matelots on shore leave, more lakeside and boating shots, and finally onto a charabanc at Pooley Bridge to head for Penrith and home – on the train, of course.

INTERMISSION

So after all that 90 minutes' fevered excitement, it was time for a much-needed break with the twenty-minute interval.

The Duke's bar, the foyer, the passages and even the outdoor smoking facilities were abuzz with a babble of joy, curiosity and a sheer, almost childlike excitement. Everywhere people were asking, ‘Did you recognise that field?', or ‘hasn't it all changed?' Some knew the truth; ‘That's now the supermarket', and ‘It looks tattier now'. A few were crisply critical; ‘There wasn't a trace of litter in sight', and ‘ahh, not a car in sight'.

Yes, there were plenty of vintage horse-drawn trams, hundreds of dogs everywhere and horse-and-carts aplenty, but ‘just look at all the horse mess – the soldiers were marching through it!'

Others waxed unashamedly nostalgic: ‘I remember when Aunty Jean …', or ‘our Doris and Fred next door used to play out on there ….' It was as if there was an unleashed torrent of diverse emotions spontaneously and openly expressed, keenly debated, historically interpreted and longingly relived.

It was just wonderful. Rarely do you go to the cinema and see such a powerful and such a warm reaction from the audience. The films had clearly meant a great deal to those present, who included young and old and a wide social mix.

There were the ageing grandparents, the wistfuls from their 40s and 50s [ooooh! that's you – Ed], a number of bemused youngsters including one young student from St Martins who had taken her parents from Darwen for a wedding anniversary treat (what a thoughtful notion!), and a heavy squad of top-ranking if undateable social historians and other academics from Lancaster University.

Part 2 - THE HALCYON 1950s,
INDUSTRIAL INDIAN SUMMER of the 1960s, and
1990s NOSTALGIA

After World War II the many changes to British society, to our whole way of life, were far-reaching and enormous. As the technology of the camera and of photographic techniques expanded, the post-war, post-rationing years of the 1950s and 1960s gave the new, cheaper mechanics of making film full rein on our new, freer society.

SEA, SMUT AND SCENERY

Our well-informed presenter for the evening, Geoff Senior, had gradually warmed to his riveted audience, and his admirably clear commentary had by now taken on a wry and critical slant. But let the Archive's own notes introduce the first film of the second half:

Coastal choice
Lancashire Coast, 1955, British Transport Films: "A promotional film showing the delights of holidaying on the Lancashire coast. Various towns are featured and activities in each - Blackpool and Southport beaches, and a bathing beauty contest at the swimming pool at Morecambe …'

This began with delighted gasps for it was – wow – in full-frontal, in-your-face Technicolour! There was money to spend again, since the first paid holidays had been introduced in 1948. The gasps of wonder changed to amazement as we saw idyllic shots of Grange-over-Sands. "Loneliness for those who like it,' explained the perceptive and prophetic commentary.

But that was not all. The commentator (using Cyril Ray's amazingly laconic script) recalled that as lad, when he was poorly, the doctor said "there's nothing wrong with you that a good blow at the seaside won't cure.' The audience clearly had its own ideas – quite a different number of ideas too, I think – of just what constituted a good blow.

We were left in no doubt what was meant as the female forms of the participants at Morecambe's Swimming Pool came parading into view. "Sleek as racehorses, sweet as Morecambe rock,' panted the clearly flustered commentator and, to cap it all, "fresh as a daisy ….' The audience collapsed into helpless, raucous giggles as we cut, perhaps thankfully, to ….

Idyllic break
… bunches of flowers at the Southport Flower Show with its equestrian event. Thankfully, a rural interlude from the frenetic, non-PC fantasies of the bustling resorts showed us "turf cutting at Pilling Marshes; Arthur Askey playing golf, fishing near Lancaster and trawlers leaving Fleetwood; an amphibious vehicle on the beach at Southport; sand yachting at Lytham St. Anne's'.

That's better, I thought, as we met Lancaster area fisherman, Dick Rawley, then aged around ninety (heavens, he must have been born in the 1860s!). This local worthy showed us how to catch whitebait and trout, whilst all anyone else could muster was "a couple of quarter-pond dabs'. Hardly anyone eats whitebait or dab these days, which is a pity. I have had witch (another flatfish and similar to dab), as well as dab itself in Scarborough, and enjoyed cooking and eating it; it's nobbut a small, tastier plaice.

Rural elegy over, the lurid and sexually-laden commentary soon started warming up again for the inevitable climax with "posters advertising entertainments and Blackpool Tower Circus; Blackpool's Golden Mile, the Tower, dancing etc and finally' – yes, inevitably, the ultimate hedonistic night-time consummation of the best holiday you ever had with "Blackpool Pleasure Beach and illuminations.'

Events of national moment – civil …
After all that non-PC excitement, there followed some selections from the newsreels of the 1950s, including extracts from Pathe News and British Gaumont. First was the national Boy Scout's Soap Box Derby of 1955, won by a team from Altrincham. It is a strange notion to see a national event built on Baden Powell's curious asexual healthiness with its military-Christian overtones in the odd guise of a Wacky Races/Scrapheap Challenge-style competitive sport at a national convention. Perhaps we now need the Punks just to liberate us – they're more colourful, lively, spontaneous and interesting than the dreaded, anodyne Eurovision.

TEN ROYAL MINUTES in MORECAMBE

… and regal
More public celebration of a different nature was evident in the equally bizarre Royal Visit of the recently-crowned Queen, Elizabeth II By The Grace of God etc and her tall husband, Prince Philip of Greece, who came to Morecambe in 1955, not to return till the recent unveiling of the Eric Morecambe statue.

The Windsors (she bonny if short, he tall and, thankfully, not saying much) were in Lancashire for a two-day whistle-stop tour, taking in the whole county from its then perceived and still rightly-perceived capital, Lancaster, Preston (the Police College at Hutton), Blackburn and Darwen (cheers from the wedding anniversary couple from the interval!) and winding up the way of all flesh and her northern holidaymaking subjects in Blackpool.

Timecheck Morecambe
After arriving by train at Morecambe's once-expansive Promenade station (think open and indoor markets, car park, poem path and Tourist Office/The Platform). They stayed in the town all of ten minutes before rushing off like American or Japanese heritage slaves to take in a swift key-swapping ceremony at Lancaster Castle before charging off to inspect the constabulary at Preston.

Southport got a look-in too, though we were not told where they spent the night. Maybe she took to the sleeping accommodation in the royal train, perhaps stabled on the former Glasson Dock branch, just as her grandfather George V had done twenty years before. It's all hush-hush. We shall never know …

The second day took her to the industrial east of the county with visits to Burnley (textiles mills), Darwen (they spent a quarter of an our there, five more than Morecambe – huh!), Nelson (the cotton mills) and Blackburn (all of an hour and a half here – hah!) with Philip trying to look interested and make sense of a new electronics factory they were opening there.

After no doubt a sly fag (HM is known to have smoked in her younger days), a quick snifter and some sarnies somewhere en route again unspecified, it was back to the coast for a Gala Performance at Blackpool's Opera House, with stars such as Wilfred and Mabel Pickles and, er, lots of other names which mean nothing even to a fifty-year old

But a good do it certainly must have been for some, as the three thousand theatregoers raised over £20,000 for the Variety Artists' Benevolent Funds.

A PEACEFUL ELEGY

Urban peace ...
After that frantic chase, the next extract (the first seven of almost 22 minutes) was much more relaxing. Entitled Fifteen Miles Around Morecambe, and produced by one GH Higginson in 1957, we saw short colour clips of 8mm film showing two-way traffic and red buses on Skerton Bridge, St George's Quay with working warehouses, some tranquil sequences near the Castle and Priory Church, and a quick visit to the former underground lavvies in the Market Square.

... and rural calm
All this delightful footage was finely captured and beautifully composed; it all must have been taken early in the morning as there was hardly a soul about on most of the sequences. There was more; fishing boats from Fleetwood berthing at Glasson Dock, with evidence of a busy shipbuilding and ship repair industry complete with graving [dry] dock; Heysham church and the Crook O'Lune.

The tranquillity was remarkable, and a far cry from the bustle we associate with Lancaster's traffic-choked centre, the ‘new mariners' at Glasson's marina, and the ramblers, cyclists, rural cruisers and other wide-eyed tourists at Crook O'Lune.

AN EDUCATIONAL LOOK at NATIVE SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Last but one, and just to make sure everyone was still paying attention, we were treated to Lancashire 1963, a pioneering educational film to support the teaching of geography in secondary schools. This contained some extraordinary facts:

Some key facts about Lancashire:

Lancashire was the most densely-populated county in the UK
Lancashire contained 5 million people spread over 1 million acres
Lancashire contained one-eighth of the UK's workforce

Big, wannit? Remember, though, that we are talking of a Lancashire before the 1974 boundary changes; the county then contained the huge conurbations of Liverpool, Manchester and the Bolton-Bury-Rochdale belt too.

Work aplenty in industry old and new
Jobs were seemingly plentiful as industry was booming. Cotton was still a prosperous concern, the coal industry was modernising, and new factories and power stations were spring up everywhere. Lancashire was producing fabrics, textiles (even some outrageous paper handbags, made from raw material imported from Scandinavia), glass from St Helens, railway engines from Vulcan, near Earlestown, and ships from Merseyside.

Profitable Lancashire, the commentary declared, was "a self-contained workshop'. Not only was the county rich in or handy for natural resources (coal, iron water etc) but there were also excellent transport links for raw materials in (from the sea and by rail) and finished goods to foreign and domestic export markets by the same means.

Ominously, the motorway age was just dawning too at that time. As well as Liverpool, then Britain's second port, Lancashire boasted other significant ports including Manchester, Fleetwood, Preston and Heysham.

But a bigger revelation was to come; Lancashire was also virtually self-sufficient for food.

FOODIE EXCELLENCE

Lancashire's rich variety of foods
35,000 acres of Lancashire were then under pasture, and the county's "equitable climate and well-distributed rainfall' [you're joking – Ed]. No jest, the geography of Lancashire is excellent for growing food. Drawing an imaginary line along the River Ribble and splitting the county into two, the northern half is propitious for beef cattle, sheep and grain, whilst the southern part is ideal for fruit, vegetables and dairy farming.

Although not mentioned, pigs and poultry were presumably ubiquitous, and there were also some interesting shots of a Heinz food processing plant in Wigan, evidently. That other important component of a good diet – fish – was available in huge quantities from Lancashire's seaports. Not only did the larger deep-sea and coastal trawler catches afford variety, but there was yet more from the smaller, more specialised, local fishing industries such as shrimping.

From Bay sands to Baxters
We were treated to the life cycle of transformation from a raw shrimp in the sands and the water (presumably in Morecambe Bay), on the boat, in the boiler, being shelled and picked and, finally, being potted (I'm sure was Baxters in Morecambe) in butter and spices. And where did it all end up?

Cut to Preston Market, where the "thrifty housewife' [hah!- Ed] had a seemingly unparalleled choice of LOCAL fresh fruit, veg, meat, fish, bread, cheeses (we saw inside a creamery too). All this wondrous array of goodies are now often only seen at Farmers' Markets, but they contain all the essential nutrition, vitamins, minerals and low-food-mile goodies we are now enjoying again, though they are still anathema to much of the UK's population as well as social death to most children in our widely-impoverished culinary culture.

A reclaimed heritage
The evidence from the film suggests that Lancashire was indeed self-sufficient for food forty years ago. It is only recently, as common sense returns and the organic movement gathers pace, that people hereabouts are leading the way to rediscover and reclaim our own local foodstuffs; Lancashire seems to have more Farmers' Markets than Yorkshire, for example. How right for so many reasons that we should again prefer good local produce to mass-produced, over-imported, processed, obesity-charged and over-additived pap [feel better now after the rant? – Ed].

PEACEFUL REFLECTION

After the excitement of our regional pride in high employment, industrial excellence and food, the evening came to a close on a more tranquil note, with a delightful elegy of a passing way of life, Netting the Tide. This elegant and sensitive eleven-minute documentary was made by student Beverly Lamb in 1977-8, and featured "Tom Smith, a shrimp fisherman in Morecambe Bay and the last to still use a horse'.

Sunset over the Bay
Focused around the lovely, lonely-looking Sunderland Point, the simple, effective shots show Tom preparing himself, the cart and his horse Prince for the day's work. His main season is in the autumn, which can extend up "to Christmas if the weather's mild'. He makes an eight-mile round trip on each day's tide-dependant expedition, and uses a beam trawler net, drawn behind his horse and cart, to catch the fish at low tide. In the background as he went in and out of the water up to the horse's waist were the monstrous Heysham power stations lurking prophetically behind the beautiful estuarine views.

Such a world, such an unhurried and peaceful way of life and work was, even then, doomed. But the demure Tom enjoyed his work, even though it didn't generate a decent, year-round income. He preferred, in the ancient, time-honoured tradition, his quadruped to the new-fangled notion of the internal combustion engine. Prince was "better company,' and "fends for itself,' compared with the tractor.

And, poignantly, the horse "doesn't rust'.

But memories fade, golden ages tarnish and, as Dryden pointed out, "All human things are subject to decay'. Even in Lancashire, God's own county.

This evening, to sum up, was a timely, warm, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, very varied but never mawkishly sentimental reminder of what life has been like in our area over the last hundred or so years. The capacity audience was loudly and warmly appreciative of the treat they had enjoyed in the three-hour programme put together for The Dukes by the North West Film Archive.

All the footage seen tonight came from the treasure-trove of the North West Film Archive, part of Manchester Metropolitan University. You may have seen some of their other film on Thursday evenings on television, in "The way we were'. The Archive certainly has some real gems, and the reactions from the appreciative audience were tangible and clearly audible as frissons of excitement flurried through the auditorium at any and every familiar image during the three hours of this excellent show.

I hope it is not long before we see another choice selection from their marvellous collection again hereabouts.

Copyright © 19 February/6 March 2005 Michael Nunn

Acknowledgements:

The stills are reproduced by kind permission of the NWFA. No other publication or use of these is permitted.

In The Lake District, and Lancashire Coast were screened with the kind permission of the British Film Institute (BFI).

The writer gratefully acknowledges his debt to Marion Hewitt and Geoff Senior of the NWFA, and also to its comprehensive website resources, for further details of the films shown.

The writer also thanks local historian Dr Sharon Lambert (see her interview) for her advice and background information, and also John Burkinshaw for his ever-eager eye.

Another evening of local films:
The Dukes is shortly screening an evening of films of Lancaster-Morecambe interest from the recently discovered Mitchell & Kenyon collection at the British Film Institute [see our review].

Make a note in the diary now for Thursday April 7, The Dukes' Cinema, 7.30pm. And book now, because if tonight was anything to go by, it's sure to be a full house again.