Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 5233 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| ROTHERHAM UP TO DATE | 1961 | 1961-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 39 mins 22 secs Credits: Produced by Wrigleys Productions Subject: Working Life Urban Life Politics Education |
| Summary This is a film commissioned by Rotherham Corporation to explain and promote the work of Rotherham Town Council. The commentary provides an outline of council work with the film providing illustrations from many of its departments: education, health, home help, housing, refuse collection, entertainment and so on. |
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Description
This is a film commissioned by Rotherham Corporation to explain and promote the work of Rotherham Town Council. The commentary provides an outline of council work with the film providing illustrations from many of its departments: education, health, home help, housing, refuse collection, entertainment and so on.
Title – Rotherham up to Date
Rotherham Corporation, Produced by Wrigleys Productions
The film begins with an aerial view of the Don Valley and Rotherham, with the commentary...
This is a film commissioned by Rotherham Corporation to explain and promote the work of Rotherham Town Council. The commentary provides an outline of council work with the film providing illustrations from many of its departments: education, health, home help, housing, refuse collection, entertainment and so on.
Title – Rotherham up to Date
Rotherham Corporation, Produced by Wrigleys Productions
The film begins with an aerial view of the Don Valley and Rotherham, with the commentary providing a potted history of the town and recent developments. The film switches to a meeting of the town council and one of its committees. Old housing is in a state of demolition, and there are new houses building after the war in Broom Valley, making up several large housing estates.
The film moves on to look at the Health Department, with a midwife and a new-born baby at the mother’s home. A woman in home help uniform prepares tea and biscuits as part of the council’s home help. A doctor examines the mother. Later the baby is taken to a child health clinic where it is weighed and receives a polio jab. Then the children’s nursing unit, which is on call 24 hours a day, is helping with a child in its own home. A home helper also does some cleaning of the outside of the house.
A child is brought to the Badsley Moor Lane nursery school. Here the children read books in the classroom, paint, do woodwork and play on swings, climbing frames and slides. At the Children’s Department’s nursery at Oakwood Grange, a boy is on a tricycle, and another small child is on a donkey. Inside the children are “enjoying a homely atmosphere”, and lunch.
Then onto one of the corporations own homes, in the suburb of Kimberworth, where the children set out on a trip by coach to the coast for their annual holiday. At Ferham House dental clinic a girl is having a brace fitted.
The film movies onto a training centre “for the mentally subnormal”. Here the users are doing crafts, with women fixing combs onto show cards, being paid having just got a new contract. In the evening they play table tennis and dance at a “rock and roll session”. Elsewhere children have eye tests and are treated at the physiotherapy department, with two girls exercising on wall bars. Children are treated at the ‘Minor Ailment Clinic’, and a speech therapist “treats” two children.
The Education Department is next featured, and several schools are shown. Children run out of the Broom Valley Infant School, and others do crafts in the classroom. The school choir rehearses for Parents’ Day. In the classroom they read and do arithmetic, in the playground they do exercises and some girls practice the recorder. Mr Gordon, the Headmaster, can be seen.
The Health Department is conducting audiometer tests on the children using a record player and headphones. At the Oakwood Secondary Schools girls are doing domestic science. There is a medical examination, with one girl being treated by a chiropodist. In the gym girls are doing “expression in music and movement”. A girl draws the stage background in preparation for Parents’ Day. At the Oakwood Secondary Schools for Boys pupils are at work in woodwork and metalwork classes, “providing similar conditions to those the boys might meet in their working life”.
At the Grammar school it is explained that students have their chosen subjects, and are prepared for university. The boys race around a running track and do hurdles, shot put and the javelin on the school sports day, possibly Herringthorpe Valley Sports Centre. At the College of Technology, students work in various laboratories, and at the School of Arts and crafts, students doing pottery, screen printing, and fashion design.
The film returns to one of the ‘self-contained’ housing estates, showing a shopping area. Mention is made of the water supply, and dustmen are shown emptying metal dustbins into a dustcart, and other refuse being collected. Some is taken to the salvage sorting shed where paper is being pressed into bales. The dustcarts unload at a new tip at Car Hill, “with space for the next 30 years”. A road sweeping machine goes along All Saints Square. At a large Sewage Works, new work is being carried out, and laying road on the new estates.
There is a new cemetery and crematorium. Some elderly people sit on seats at Kimberworth, where an old blacksmiths shop used to be. At the Transport Department on Rawmarsh Road a bus goes through the wash, and buses are shown in the town centre. Shoppers wander around the outdoor and indoor markets, and there is an auction at the Cattle Market.
Children go on rides and swim in the outdoor pool in Clifton Park, where people play bowls and there is also an Agricultural Show, with large greenhouses. A new park is being developed as Barkers Park in Kimberworth. Some of the exhibits at the Museum in Clifton Park are shown. Then the Library is shown, followed by the Civic Theatre, displaying many of the flyers for recent productions, such as Arnold Wesker’s ‘Roots’, in February 1961. Customers relax in the foyer, coffee lounge and bar. The Group of Three theatre company are rehearsing Peter Shaffer’s play ‘Five Finger Exercises’.
The Fire Brigade is shown in action, racing through the streets of Rotherham and attending a fire. This is followed by the auxiliary fire service in training. They release a boy who has his head stuck in railings. Next the police are called out, followed by the ambulance service. Then a reconnaissance party from the Civil Defence is out on an exercise at a derelict site, measuring radioactivity.
The film moves on to show some “old people’s homes”, and a chiropody clinic for the aged. The Home Help Service comes out to do people’s laundry, and one helper does someone’s washing up. Elsewhere a nurse dresses an elderly man’s ankle injury. A welfare bus picks up “the physically handicapped”, including a woman in a wheelchair, while a blind couple are helped working on a poultry farm, with the man showing one of his prize rabbits. Another man, trained by the council, copies a book in braille.
The film then shows a graph providing a breakdown of the amount of each pound of council money is spent on each department.
The film finishes by returning to the beginning, with pedestrians in the town centre, walking and queuing for buses, then to the council chamber and an aerial view over Rotherham.
The End.
Context
One of the films donated by Rotherham Archives and Local Studies, Rotherham Up-to-Date was produced by Wrigleys Film Productions. However not much information is given about this particular company; it is an independent commercial film company, likely based in Rotherham as it produced Progress Parkgate, a promotional film about one of Rotherham’s iron and steel works which is part of the Charles Chislett collection. It was also known as Wrigley Industrial Film Unit (as credited in Rachel and...
One of the films donated by Rotherham Archives and Local Studies, Rotherham Up-to-Date was produced by Wrigleys Film Productions. However not much information is given about this particular company; it is an independent commercial film company, likely based in Rotherham as it produced Progress Parkgate, a promotional film about one of Rotherham’s iron and steel works which is part of the Charles Chislett collection. It was also known as Wrigley Industrial Film Unit (as credited in Rachel and Roy’s Wedding) but it is likely that the company is now out of business or has been renamed.
The Rotherham Corporation commissioned the film to explain and promote the work of the Town Council which was comprised of 44 members (11 aldermen, and 11 sets of 3 members from each ward) in 1961. The council also split into committees which deal with the issues and development projects of several different departments. Featured in this film are the health and welfare, education, engineering, municipal, transport, commercial, parks and recreation, culture and emergency departments, each of which is explained in terms of how they affect the people of Rotherham. Rotherham’s industry and development grew rapidly during the industrial revolution; the presence of natural materials made it a prime place for iron and steel works and for coal mining, and many companies set up mills and foundries in the early 19th century. Rotherham iron and steel supplemented a wide range of manufactures from household implements to large scale bridge and building construction and industries further prospered in the first half of the twentieth century when many iron and steel works began munitions and weapons manufacture. Rotherham’s industries, steel in particular, began to decline after the end of the Second World War as they were facing less demand and foreign competitors who could produce steel more cheaply. Today only a few steel works remain but Templeborough Steel Works, which closed in 1993, was refurbished and become the Magna Science and Adventure Centre. Aside from production industries rapid public development in Rotherham also took place in the nineteenth century after the 1871 charter of incorporation and was further supplemented in the 1950s and ‘60s. One of the main post-war developments that took place was the extensive building of new housing. It was an urgent issue, but despite the lack of resources and trained workmen, many estates were put up. They were built to accommodate the growing population and to replace the ‘slum property’ since little development had occurred during the war years and many buildings had fallen into disrepair. Large housing estates were built between the forties and fifties in the suburbs which offered a new and attractive alternative to the congested areas in the town centre. But they were not limited to Rotherham. “This type of housing can be found across the UK and was actively promoted by central government in the early to mid 20th century as an ‘ideal’ of suburban development for the working classes” (Municipal suburbs, references). In the more urban areas high density estates were developed in the idea of small sub-communities within the borough with their own shopping areas and recreational spaces. After the 1944 Education Act was passed, Rotherham Corporation constructed and updated several schools in and around Rotherham. Oakwood Technical School for boys was put up in 1952, followed by the school for girls in 1953; Old Hall Secondary School at Kimberworth was established in 1959 (and has since merged with Kimberworth Secondary School to become Winterhill School); and St. Bernard’s Catholic School was opened in 1961. The film also features Oakwood Grange, a Corporation-run nursery which aims to bring children up in a ‘homely’ environment, as opposed to government institutions. Due to Rotherham’s industrial nature, there was a large focus on the teaching of practical skills for post-education employment in relation to local industries. The College of Technology (built in 1931) had a machine tool laboratory and a mining electrical department and specialised in the teaching of science. The education department received the largest percentage of tax funding; 10s 1½d out of every pound, as shown on the chart at the end of the film. The film also highlights one of the most prominent and active departments: the health and welfare department. This department provided a range of services such as midwives, and on-call home help for infants, children, and the elderly, child welfare clinics that deal with immunisations and vaccinations and special services for the elderly at various clinics and within the home help service. The welfare department had a special focus on services for the mentally and physically disabled such as transport, providing opportunities to socialise and work opportunities ranging from training centres for the “mentally subnormal” allowing them to gain skills for practical work whilst earning a wage to specific jobs such as a braille copyist. The health and welfare department ties in closely with the educational institutions. Examples of this include Ferham House dental clinic run for school children and eye tests, audiometer tests, physiotherapy, minor ailments clinics, speech therapy provided during a child’s time at school. Rotherham Up-to-Date provides a glimpse of other departments run by the council that continue today as standard practice such as the municipal department which deals with refuse collection and sewage disposal, road maintenance and lighting; the engineering department that constructs and maintains public buildings; the transport department which provides public transport; and the emergency department under which falls the standard fire brigade, police force, and ambulance services. However, the film features one, more unusual, emergency service; the civil defence corps an organisation, still in existence but of less significance, which was set up with the aim of “being preparation for, and actual non-combatant assistance to individuals, groups or communities in need of immediate assistance as a result of natural or man-made events”. During the Second World War the government issued Air Raid Precaution services, a compulsory service staffed by volunteers who had various duties regarding air raids and their unfortunate consequences. After the war ended the ARP became the Civil Defence Corps which was reconstituted by the government in the late 1940s as the threat of Cold War grew ever closer. The film features the Scientific and Reconnaissance sub-section of the CDC which concentrates on the research of biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare and provides reconnaissance parties for the monitoring of nuclear fallout. The CDC remains even today though it is no longer government funded. References Civil Defence Association South Yorkshire Historic Environment Characterisation, Municipal Suburbs Magna Centre website Rotherham Unofficial, education Rotherham Unofficial, iron and steel Rotherham Unofficial, 19th century industry Rotherham Unofficial, 20th century history Winterhill School History |
