This is a film of villagers of Skidby preparing for the Yorkshire Rural Council Best kept village competition for East Riding for 1970.  It was filmed by Robert Peake of Cottingham.  The film shows many members of the community hard at work cleaning the village and making it look as good as possible.  In all 42 villages took part in the competition, with Bishop Burton coming first, Walkington second and Skidby third. The film begins showing the windmill at Skidby, before showing members of...

This is a film of villagers of Skidby preparing for the Yorkshire Rural Council Best kept village competition for East Riding for 1970.  It was filmed by Robert Peake of Cottingham.  The film shows many members of the community hard at work cleaning the village and making it look as good as possible.  In all 42 villages took part in the competition, with Bishop Burton coming first, Walkington second and Skidby third. The film begins showing the windmill at Skidby, before showing members of Skidby Preservation and Improvement Society, including the Chair, Arthur Dixon, and Bill Young, secretary of the Society in conference in the Village Hall.  The film switches to the front garden of “Cedar Cottage”, Home of Harold Bartrop, where there is another group of middle aged men and a woman.  Two of the men and several women then enter the Skidby Village Hall and Institute on Main Street.  The film then shows a document of the Yorkshire Rural Council regarding the best kept village competition for 1970.  Another document relating to the Skidby entry to the competition is being run off on a Gestetner copying machine.  A poster for the competition has been put up on the Skidby Parish Council Notice Board, calling for tidiness, and stating that judging is in June.  The film switches to show a fly tipping area covered in rubbish, and various other places in need to renovation, before three children with their mother start the process of clearing up.  A man scythes the grass by a road, while the children use shears and rakes.  There is a box with painting materials and a man preparing to paint the posts of a chain fence, helped by the children and their mother.  Others are trimming the grass.  They take away the grass cuttings in a wheelbarrow.  Then Brownies help out collecting litter. They stand in a line for a group shot for the camera.  A man mows the grass outside the Half Moon pub.  Others are also shown mowing grass and tending to flowers and cutting hedges around the village.  Councillor Don Peake sees to the weathervane on top of the church tower.  While another man transports some earth in a three-wheeled truck, with a girl riding on the back.  A group of women from the Women’s Institute are cutting down an overgrown area and loading the cuttings into sacks.  One woman poses in front of a Ford Capri. The front of Skidby Village Hall and Institute is again shown and the small cemetery and then the fly tip, now more clean and tidy.  A bird bath is shown with the inscription, “The kiss of the sun for pardon . . . “with close ups of roses and other flowers and house with the name of “Odense,” with Councillor Dick Small cutting the grass.  Other houses, including Alma house, are also shown, all neat and tidy.  As is the Church of St Michael, with a bench outside which has “Featherstone” written on it.  There are more views of the village looking spic and span.  We then take a car ride through the village, passing a couple of prams and an AA van.  The film switches to show the judges going in and coming out of the church and inspecting the village, before there is a road sign for Bishop Burton, which is also shown looking very attractive.   A man makes a speech from a platform, with other people, with a flag of St George, to a gathering of people sat and standing near a marquee at Bishop Burton.  The flag is dropped to reveal a sign for The Best Kept Village Trophy, East Riding.  Bill Young gets up to receive a certificate, an “Award of Merit”, for Skidby, which is shown to the camera.   There is a bench, also so inscribed, underneath the sign.  Those attending are then entertained by children doing country dancing.  Again we see the village filmed from the front of a car as it drives through, down a different route, and the film comes to an end.  The End