This film is one of many made by local Bradford businessman and councillor Robert Sharp. The Yorkshire Film Archive holds over 30 films either made by, or on behalf of, Bob Sharp. These are mainly from the 1940s, but some date from the late 1930s through to the late 1950s. The films cover a variety of subjects: not only the Sharp floor covering business, but also reflecting Bob’s interests and hobbies, his work as a councillor as well as family film. He started working in his father’s floor...

This film is one of many made by local Bradford businessman and councillor Robert Sharp. The Yorkshire Film Archive holds over 30 films either made by, or on behalf of, Bob Sharp. These are mainly from the 1940s, but some date from the late 1930s through to the late 1950s. The films cover a variety of subjects: not only the Sharp floor covering business, but also reflecting Bob’s interests and hobbies, his work as a councillor as well as family film. He started working in his father’s floor covering business in 1911 at the age of 15, and when he took over developed it by opening several more shops, including the shop in the old Kirkstall Market that can be seen in this film. 

After the war Sharp’s business grew, and, with the passing of the years of austerity, people were able to become more house proud and Sharps were employing some 50 workers, including fitters and sewers. Five years after this film, in 1949, Sharp made a film on one of his shops, Sharp's Halifax Shop, held at the YFA. For more information on Robert Sharp and his other films see the Context for Street Cleansing (1946) and 700th Anniversary Of Bradford Market Charter (1951).


This film precedes another made by Bob Sharp, Lord Mayor's Year Of Office, made just after this one, following the forthcoming Lord Mayor, Cecil Barnett, on his rounds – who is seen in this film as well. Bob Sharp also filmed the Holidays at Home week in Bradford the previous two years. As a councillor himself he was well placed to do so. In fact if one put all Bob Sharp’s films together, one would probably get just about all the local dignitaries in Bradford going back to the beginning of the war, until well into the 1950s. In this film other future and past Lord Mayors can be seen, including Henry Hudson, who was Lord Mayor in 1937. 

In his fascinating book on the psychological and cultural effects of the Second World War – which challenges many myths that have grown up around the war – Paul Fussell quotes General Eisenhower’s claim that, “morale is a lot of little things.” (p 145) Keeping up a normal life as much as possible, including entertainment, certainly comes under this general principle that would have guided the British as well as the US government.   Holidays at Home was a government inititiative designed to save on fuel, and give priority to miliary related rail travel, but also to keep up morale; which was always a critical factor in this, as in any war. Angus Calder states that the effort given to this campaign was “largely unavailing” (p. 423). Chris Sladen in his paper, ‘Holidays at Home in the Second World War’, has a similar verdict on the Railway poster campaign, ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary’.   British resorts like Blackpool did very well out of the war.

Chris Sladen notes that holiday taking during the Second World War is a very neglected subject. He gives evidence, from Mass Observation Studies, that the majority of people wanted holidays.  Many films from the YFA would back this up as well.  Yet the very phrase, ‘Holidays at Home’, might be thought something of an oxymoron: people may have been content to not holiday far away, but certainly not at home (which hardly counts as a holiday). He quotes Vera Britten to the effect that, “the British determination to celebrate a holiday somehow . . [was] . .  evident to the most casual observer.” (p. 68) Although it would certainly have helped to have staggered holidays, this was not really pursued, and in towns like those in the West Yorkshire which were used to Wakes Weeks, this would have taken some encouragement – see the Context for Saturday Morning Out. In fact local government became the agents for organising Holidays at Home.

The Labour MP J P W Mallalieu wrote a book in 1943, Passed to You, Please, extolling the need for holidays at home, citing Huddersfield as a great example in organising sports, games, donkey rides in the park, concerts, brass bands, model railway and yacht contests and open air dancing. Bradford was clearly not alone; although Sladen provides evidence that the response to the campaign was very patchy, and gives some of the reasons why this was so, such as poor promotion and a lack of conviction in the campaign. Judging by the kind of events which were put on – perhaps reflecting the tastes of the local councillors – they probably got most response from the middle class, and this film doesn’t do much to dispell this impression. Much depended on the initiative and imagination of the local authority. The Times talked up the success of Holidays at Home, citing Roundhay Park in the summer of 1942, having a marquee that could accommodate 800 dancing couples.

The existence of a lido, as evidenced in this film, was a great bonus. It isn’t clear which pool, or lido, is seen in this film: there was a lido in Lister Park, although this is not listed on websites devoted to old lidos – see References. Ilkley had an outdoor swimming pool that opened in 1935, and which is still going, though current photos bear no resemblance to the lida that can be seen in this film, with its large stands – for more on lidos see the Context for Sheffield Spartan Swimmers (1933-34).

Beauty contests were another common feature: The Times wrote on the Holiday Queen competition in Harrogate in 1943, won by an evacuee. Remarkebly, despite coming under heavy feminist criticism from women, especially in the late 1960s and 1970s, beauty competitions have continued to survive and flourish. This is even more remarkable for children’s beauty competitions. Some might think that the contests seen in the film are rather unsavoury, although this would certainly be to judge in hindsight a cultural period when the prevailing attitudes to children were quite different from those of today – although even this generalisation needs to be qualified. Children’s contests, like those shown during Holidays at Home Weeks, flourished in the holiday camps that grew rapidly after the war, and the YFA has plenty of film to testify to this.

Another interesting part of the film is the black athlete who wins one of the races and receives a prize. Famously, the first major immigration to Britain from the Carribean wasn’t until 1948, when the ship MV Empire Windrush arrived in London with the first group of 492 immigrants in April of that year. Before then records on African-Caribbean immigrants to Britain are sparse, and even more so for specific cities like Bradford. Migration from Europe to Bradford before the Second World War is better known. It may be that the athlete is a US soldier stationed nearby, although there is an African-Caribbean boy in the film also. In fact, compared to the other competitors on view, it looks rather as if Usain Bolt has arrived from the future!

Needless to say, once the war was over people were keen to take their holiday well away from home, although the campaign for holidays at home grew in popularity as the war went on, and many indeed survived the end of the war. They also left a legacy in local council funding of entertainment, and were instrumental in promoting outdoor activities, like outdoor dancing and concerts, which previous to the war were virtually unknown.

References

Angus Calder, The People’s War, Panther Books, London, 1971.

Paul Fussell, Wartime, Oxford university Press, 1989.

Chris Sladen, ‘Holidays at Home in the Second World War’, in Journal Of Contemporary History, Vol. 37 Issue 01, January 2002, pp 68-89.

Bradford Timeline

List of past mayors of Bradford

Lidos in the UK

This has a wealth of information and links to other sources, including a list other films featuring lidos.

The Twentieth Century Society campaign to save lidos

This also has an interesting historical overview of lidos.

Information on lidos, past and present

Nice photos of old lidos, but at the time of writing none on Sheffield

The migrant’s story