This is one of a collection of films made by members of the Selby Cine Club.  It shows the Selby Gala celebrations on Saturday, 27 June, 1981 and is accompanied by a running narration and upbeat background music.  Among the highlights are a carnival parade, a cycle race, a dog show and a ‘superstars’ competition, opened by Selby born athlete John Sherwood. Title – Selby Cine Club Presents Title - Gala ‘81 The film begins showing two boys drinking cans of pop.  They are among many...

This is one of a collection of films made by members of the Selby Cine Club.  It shows the Selby Gala celebrations on Saturday, 27 June, 1981 and is accompanied by a running narration and upbeat background music.  Among the highlights are a carnival parade, a cycle race, a dog show and a ‘superstars’ competition, opened by Selby born athlete John Sherwood. Title – Selby Cine Club Presents Title - Gala ‘81 The film begins showing two boys drinking cans of pop.  They are among many assembling for the carnival, including the Lord Mayor.  The parade gets underway led by a brass band, followed by an open top bys carring dignateries with a banner which reads, "Coal Now The Fuel of the Future.  Ther are so majorettes and various floats, including one portraying the Mayflower, for the Coal Board, for “Moorends Carefree Jazz Band”, for Selby Methodist Church and for Staynor High School.  Then a cycle race, sponsored by the NCB and British Rail, is set underway by a young woman made to look like a railway guard. Next there is a ‘Superstars’ competition, loosely based on the television programme of the same name, to find the best sportsman in the Selby area.  This starts with a football competition, followed by cycling and basketball.  Selby born athlete John Sherwood – who won a bronze medal in the 400 meters hurdles at the 1968 Olympics – officially gets the day’s activities underway.  The ‘Superstars’ competition continues with weight lifting, showing Fred Drury doing well.  John Sherwood signs autographs and there is a children’s fancy dress.  At Bishopwood, the cyclists are completing the second leg of the five ten mile rides.  There are children with ice creams, fair rides and children trying to do archery.  Back with the ‘Superstars’, who are now doing dips.  This is followed by a girls’ skating display, all wearing grass skirts. Following this is a dog show before returning to the last five miles of the cycle race. The Mayor walks around the stalls, where children are on a bouncy castle.  Then there is a display of school gymnastics and a women’s keep fit class touching their toes.  We see the winners at the end of the cycle race, followed by women Morris dancers.  Then the final part of the ‘Superstars’ competition, a steeplechase.  Prizes are handed out at the finish, and John Sherwood gives each participant a memento, one of whom, Mike Fox, drinks beer from out of the winner’s cup.   The final event is a fire display in the evening, with a burning cross, among other constructions, to the sound of Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra”.  The narrator informs that money raised went to charities connected to the International Year of the Disabled. Title – Gala ‘81