This film is one of many made by Kathleen Lockwood, a teacher at Hepworth school. Kathleen, a member of the Holmfirth Camera Club, filmed her local communities in Holmfirth and the Holme Valley between 1939 and 1945, and on into the 1980s, and include footage of the filming of Last of the Summer Wine. In many ways Kathleen’s films are similar to those of another woman filmmaker from the same area, Lucy (Louisa) Fairbanks, from Linthwaite in Huddersfield.  Lucy too was a teacher, though...

This film is one of many made by Kathleen Lockwood, a teacher at Hepworth school. Kathleen, a member of the Holmfirth Camera Club, filmed her local communities in Holmfirth and the Holme Valley between 1939 and 1945, and on into the 1980s, and include footage of the filming of Last of the Summer Wine. In many ways Kathleen’s films are similar to those of another woman filmmaker from the same area, Lucy (Louisa) Fairbanks, from Linthwaite in Huddersfield.  Lucy too was a teacher, though slightly older – for more on Lucy see the Context for her film Out and About in Yorkshire, made in the 1950s. This film, Holmfirth In Wartime, has much more in common with another film made of Holmfirth during the war, Holmfirth Tradesmen's Trip & Blitz In Sheffield made by local amateur filmmaker Wylbert Kemp.

The YFA has a number of wartime films that feature War Weapons Week, one of a number of fund raising events that took place throughout the country during the war. They all take a similar format with the services, at home and abroad, and other organisations parading through the streets and giving demonstrations, as the fire brigade do here. Fortunately Holmfirth got off lightly as far as bombing raids go, see the Context for Morley Depot Of The C.H.S.S & St Johns Ambulance. Notice that the fire fighters are practicing on the buildings of the Baddeley Brothers, the coach company who also figure in Holmfirth Tradesmen's Trip & Blitz In Sheffield – see the Context of this film for more on them.

Both Lord Harewood and the Princess Royal make appearances in other films from this time, see Green Howards Train For War (1940) and Morley Depot Of The C.H.S.S & St Johns Ambulance. But this may be the only film of Lady Baden Powell in the YFA Collection. Olave Baden-Powell became Chief Guide in 1918, taking over from Robert Baden-Powell’s sister Agnes Baden-Powell – see the Context for Brownie Pack Holiday (1982).

Something else that turns up in another film is the Luftwaffe Messerschmitts that can be seen. It makes an appearance also in Morley in 1941, again being used as part of a Wings for Victory Week – see Morley Depot Of The C.H.S.S & St Johns Ambulance and the Context for this. The Wings for Victory Week in the film has an interesting feature with the plaque of the hammer and sickle, sent by the Soviet Union. Of course, Britain and the USSR were allies during the war, and the Soviet Union was taking a lot of the fighting at this time. Yet just a few days before this Wings for Victory Week commenced, on 17th April 1943, Germany claimed to have found a mass grave of 4,443 Polish officers at Katyn, on the 13th April, shot from behind by the Soviet Army. The Soviets denied this (and continued to do so until 1990), but when the claim was verified by the Red Cross relations between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the USSR were quickly broken, and the Soviet Union set about establishing their own Polish government-in-exile.

Much has been made of the baby boom after the end of the Second World War, but of course many babies were also born during the war, as we can see in this film. Doubtless the arrival of a new generation would have acted to spur on the morale of the population during those times when German bombing was making this difficult to sustain.  A good many of these babies would have lost their fathers in the war, not least those who were born to American GIs stationed in Britain in the war. 


Another reminder of some of those for whom the war was being fought, is the exceptional film of the children evacuees. Many children were evacuated to the safer areas of Yorkshire, and many of these have described this as an adventure, which seems to be the case for the children in the film – for more on wartime evacuees see the Context for Malton Evacuees. In fact it was safe enough for the children to have left behind their gas masks which they were, legally, obliged to carry around with them (although this was far from always being the case) – Britain was never bombed with poison gas.


One such evacuee from London describes her experience on the BBC WW2 People’s War website: “With other evacuees, we were taken to Dean House Hospital, near Holmfirth, then later, the four of us were taken to a big dark mill owners house where there was a cook, it was up a curving drive with lots of trees round, and I started school while there in Sept 1941.” Who knows some of these might well be seen in this film walking through the countryside or helping to grow food. As part of the 'Dig for Victory' campaign, allotments contributed an estimated 1.3 million tonnes of food from 1.4 million plots: although more labour intensive, they were more productive per acre than agricultural land.

Apart from the gas masks, another precautionary measure that by 1943 was hardly likely to be called into action, at least for its original purpose, was the Home Guard, seen here in May 1943. By that time the feared German invasion that gave birth to the Home Guard was only a very remote possibility, with German troops tied up on the Eastern Front – for more on the Home Guard see the Context for Formation Of The Homeguard (1944).

 The threshing machine that can be seen at work is very similar to another shown in Sheriff Hutton Agricultural Scenes (1946-54), which has German prisoners of war working on it. This highlights another interesting connection, as recently the story has come to light of German prisoners of war helping out in restoration after the great Holmfirth flood of May 29, 1944 (see the Report from the Huddersfield Daily Examiner under the rather odd title of Hitler's impact on the Great Flood of '44, References). Unfortunately this event is not covered in this film – perhaps accounted for by the news blackout at the time on anything that might affect morale – but still Kathleen Lockwoodhas provided us with a fascinating portrait of one town during the war from its early days until its victory celebrations.

 References

Juliet Gardner, Wartime: Britain 1939-1945, Headline, London, 2004.

Arthur Marwick, The Home Front: British and the Second World War, Hudson and Thames, 1976.

BBC WW2 People’s War: Mrs P.Evacuation memories and home: From Charlton to Huddersfield: Huddersfield Local Studies

Huddersfield Examiner, Hitler's impact on the Great Flood of '44