Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 14607 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE, 1953 | 1953 | 1953-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 37 mins 2 secs Credits: Individuals: Ruth Jacobson Genre: Home Movie Subject: FAMILY LIFE landscapes & seascapes military & war TRAVEL travel & tourism |
| Summary A home movie produced by Ruth Jacobson of a family cruise around the Mediterranean in 1952. The film includes life on board the S.S. [steam ship] Chusan, a British ocean liner and cruise ship. Locations visited include Gibraltar, Malta, Rhodes, Venice, Naples, Capri and Lisbon. |
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Description
A home movie produced by Ruth Jacobson of a family cruise around the Mediterranean in 1952. The film includes life on board the S.S. [steam ship] Chusan, a British ocean liner and cruise ship. Locations visited include Gibraltar, Malta, Rhodes, Venice, Naples, Capri and Lisbon.
Title: In the Swimming Pool
The film opens on a still of the "Chusan Summer Cruise” brochure cutting to a boy and girl swimming in the pool on board the SS Chusan. The girl relaxes by the pool and both children...
A home movie produced by Ruth Jacobson of a family cruise around the Mediterranean in 1952. The film includes life on board the S.S. [steam ship] Chusan, a British ocean liner and cruise ship. Locations visited include Gibraltar, Malta, Rhodes, Venice, Naples, Capri and Lisbon.
Title: In the Swimming Pool
The film opens on a still of the "Chusan Summer Cruise” brochure cutting to a boy and girl swimming in the pool on board the SS Chusan. The girl relaxes by the pool and both children pose for the camera.
Title: Gibraltar
A still of a Gibraltar travel brochure beside a doll in traditional Spanish dress is followed by a street scene with tourist horse-pulled carriages. There are views of a dress shop window display, a woman selling flowers and horse-drawn carriages parked in a street. There are views of Gibraltar from Europa Point.
Title: North African Coast
Views of passengers onboard a ship are followed by that of a woman and girl sitting on the deck. The film cuts to a travelling shot of the North African coastline as seen from the ship. White stone buildings and green fields the shore.
Title: Malta & on Deck
A man in shorts holding binoculars walks towards the camera, a woman and girl follow him. The girl sits in a chair holding a camera. There are views of passengers on the deck of the ship relaxing and sunbathing. There is a view of a coastal town and harbour seen from the ship.
Title: Rhodes
A still from a travel brochure indicates the next destination as Rhodes is followed by that of a doll in traditional Greek costume. There are shots of a harbour and coastal town with castle, Grecian columns and an amphitheatre.
Title: Rhodes Sunset & Water Sports
Views of a sunset, with small ships on the horizon. Supervised games takes place in the ship's swimming pool watched by large crowds. Games include water jousting on a pole across the pool.
Title: Doges Palace Venice
As in other sequences a still from a travel brochure and doll dressed as a gondolieri indicate the location in this sequence. The film cuts to show the cruise ship being piloted into Venice with the Piazza San Marco in the background. There are views of the Doges Palace with close ups of various architectural features.
Title: St Mark’s Square
General views of St Mark’s Cathedral and of the family feeding pigeons in St Mark’s Square.
Title: On Gondola & Leaving Venice
A boy is seated in a gondola. There are views of Venice from the departing cruise ship.
Title: On the Way to Capri and Naples & Capri
A still of a Naples in a travel brochure and dolls in traditional dress indicate the next cruise destination. The film changes to show a number of moored military ships are in Naples harbour, including a United States Navy aircraft carrier. Two boys are standing at the railings watching as a ships propeller churns water.
The film cuts to show views of the rocky island of Capri as seen from the ship. General view of one of the boy's and his mother in a tropical garden. There is an overhead views of the town and harbour.
A ship is filmed entering a harbour followed by views of a number of smaller vessels moored there. There is a view looking towards the Castel Sant'Elmo, a fortress in Naples. There are more views of the military ship including the USS “Geiger” moored in the harbour.
Title: On Board
Four men playing games on board ship. A woman poses next to a life buoy and is joined by a man. Children are playing in the swimming pool.
Title: Lisbon
A still of a photograph of Lisbon and a doll in traditional dress announce the next filmed sequence. Two women and a man are on deck followed by views of the Lisbon harbour. There are views of the Queluz Palace with ornate fountain and garden, and travelling shots of Tamariz Beach and Estoril church as the ship moves out of harbour.
Title: Home
Back at home in Newcastle a girl plays in a garden with the dolls seen in the film in traditional dress. Nearby a woman flicks through the travel brochure which ends he film.
Context
Born Birmingham, January 19, 1919. Died Newcastle, February 8, 2009, aged 90
Regarded as the grande dame of Newcastle Jewry, Ruth Jacobson moved to Newcastle as a bride of 18 and became a leading light in the city and the region, writes Faga Speker.
The youngest of four children of Rev Dr Abraham Cohen, chief minister of the Birmingham Hebrew Congregation from 1913-49, she received early training in charity work from her mother, Bessie. Armed with a receipt book and her natural charm, she...
Born Birmingham, January 19, 1919. Died Newcastle, February 8, 2009, aged 90
Regarded as the grande dame of Newcastle Jewry, Ruth Jacobson moved to Newcastle as a bride of 18 and became a leading light in the city and the region, writes Faga Speker. The youngest of four children of Rev Dr Abraham Cohen, chief minister of the Birmingham Hebrew Congregation from 1913-49, she received early training in charity work from her mother, Bessie. Armed with a receipt book and her natural charm, she was sent to collect annual subscriptions for the Poor Children’s Boot and Shoe Fund. Marrying in Newcastle in 1937, she was a mother at 19. Another two babies soon followed. Her husband, Lionel Jacobson, had gained a degree at Oxford and trained for the bar. But he went into his father’s business, Jackson the Tailor, founded in the early 1900s, and ran it with his brother before its 1953 merger with Burtons, of which he became chairman. Despite her young family, Ruth volunteered for war work and helped with the Women’s Voluntary Service until after the war. She also started her lifelong involvement in the local Daughters of Zion and joined Wizo, soon becoming branch chairman. Keen on local and especially smaller charities, she and her husband set up a trust fund. But their main endowment was the Ruth and Lionel Jacobson chair of clinical pharmacology at Newcastle University Medical School, twinned with the school of medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For over 40 years, each medical department of the university has invited a speaker from abroad to deliver the annual Jacobson Lecture. After Lionel’s death in 1978, their youngest child, Malcolm, joined Ruth as trustee. In the 1973 community amalgamation, the Jacobsons bought the site for today’s United Hebrew Congregation of Newcastle upon Tyne. The Lionel Jacobson House, the original house on the site, provides constantly used function and drop-in rooms, synagogue offices and a small shul for the daily minyan, as well as the kosher food facility. Keen collectors of contemporary art, the couple made generous loans to Newcastle and Durham Universities. Ruth was a life-member and fundraiser of the Friends of the Laing Art Gallery. A co-founder in 1948 of the highly successful amateur dramatic society, The Jewish Players, she appeared in many of its productions and led the company to its triumphant securing of two cups at the local drama festival. Involved with youth, she was chairman of the fundraising committee of the Northumberland Association of Youth Clubs, a governor of Rutherford Comprehensive School, and a member of the development trust committee of Newcastle Church High School. As founder-chairman of the League of Jewish Women in Newcastle, which she was asked to start in the mid-1970s, she became involved with the North East School for the Blind, where she used her thespian skills by acting out each character in the stories she read to the schoolchildren. Maintaining her interest in Wizo, she sat on its national executive committee and was a vice-president of Wizo UK until retiring in 2005 after receiving a Woman of Valour award. She was also active in the Newcastle Ladies’ Cancer Committee and was the first female board director of the Metro radio station, retiring in 1989 aged 70. In 1980 she was invited to join a group visit to schools and hospitals in China, organised by a London communal figure, the late Ruth Winston-Fox, with the aim of gaining emancipation for Chinese women. Asked by the deputy lord mayor of Newcastle, Labour councillor Bennie Abrahams, to serve as his deputy lady mayoress, she continued as his lady mayoress in 1981, as Mrs Marion Abrahams was too ill for public duties. Politically unaffiliated, she became a huge asset, especially with the lord mayor’s failing eyesight. She was appointed MBE in 1989 for her contribution to charitable services in north east England. But she retired from her positions as her oldest daughter, Valerie’s, health deteriorated with multiple sclerosis. Both Valerie and Valerie’s son, Nigel, predeceased her. She is survived by her second daughter, Pamela; son, Malcom; six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Obituary: Ruth Jacobson: The Jewish Chronicle online, 26 March 2009 http://www.thejc.com/social/obituaries/obituary-ruth-jacobson |
