This amateur home movie documents leisure time with the McQueen family and friends in their home town of Tynemouth, visits to the island of St. Mary’s, Rothbury, and locations in Norfolk, Cumbria, Windsor and London. Footage includes the visit of HRH Queen Mary to Blickling Hall, Norfolk, for a St. George’s Day pageant. Mac McQueen gets out of his car in the countryside, smoking a cigarette. Mac stands with his daughter, Olive, and young son, Neil, and examines the front of the car. Olive...

This amateur home movie documents leisure time with the McQueen family and friends in their home town of Tynemouth, visits to the island of St. Mary’s, Rothbury, and locations in Norfolk, Cumbria, Windsor and London. Footage includes the visit of HRH Queen Mary to Blickling Hall, Norfolk, for a St. George’s Day pageant. Mac McQueen gets out of his car in the countryside, smoking a cigarette. Mac stands with his daughter, Olive, and young son, Neil, and examines the front of the car. Olive runs through a field. Mac and May McQueen are outside the house of a relative in County Durham. They pose for the camera, laugh and play games with friends and relatives. Olive and Neil jump into the shot. Neil strikes a joke pose. Family friend Bob Neasham holds a croquet mallet (?) and pretends to hit Neil with it. Various shots show the group joking, laughing and enjoying some casual leisure time. The film cuts to McQueen friends, Bob and Claire Neasham, together in the garden of their terraced house in Shipley Road, Tynemouth. Various shots record the McQueen family and friends posing and joking by the house and in the garden. The scene switches to shots of the changing of the guard at Windsor Castle that includes a military band marching through an arch, ceremonial drill in the courtyard, and the castle exterior, shot aroound 1937. An interior silhouetted shot of a man looking through a lace-curtained window, and waving follows. The next shot is unclear. Olive and her Auntie Maggie walk out of a terraced house with May McQueen, followed Uncle Norman with a giant mug in his hand. There are exterior views of St Mary’s Lighthouse and adjacent keepers’ cottages on the rocky island of St Mary’s near Whitley Bay. Neil mooches around in his school uniform on the rocky shore. He joins Olive who sits looking out to sea on a rock. Groups of men sit on the rocks, fish and chat. Mac and May McQueen are sitting outside with Grandpa Neasham, an older and younger woman, wearing glasses, on the trip to St Mary’s Island. May, Olive and Neil McQueen are seated with another family on a sports field with nearby pavilion. In the background, other families with children lounge on the grass. There are various shots of May and two older relatives by a lake, possibly at Talkin Tarn, near Brampton, Cumbria. Mac drives up and grins from the driver’s seat. Mac, Neil and Olive play on a fence with May standing by. Olive waves to camera. May is standing with Neil and a man dressed in flat cap, suit and pocket watch. There are various shots of a visit to a farm in Rothbury. A man is milking a cow. Neil and family friend, Eddie Hindmarch, play with a sheepdog, and a young girl joins in. Mac is rowing across a lake with Neil whilst Neil’s grandmother, Granny Mac, walks beside the lake. May, Neil (eating) and his grandmother sit on a bench talking. May, Olive, and her grandmother and other relatives are amongst a crowd at a sports day outing. There is a brief shot of a sack race. The McQueen family play in the sea at Tynemouth with May’s brother, Uncle Bob. Neil walks out of the sea in his all-in-one swimsuit and dries off on the beach, in front of a row of striped canvas beach huts. Back at the house at Shipley Road, Tynemouth, a budgie sits in a birdcage. May, Granny Mac, and Mac McQueen sit on a bench beside the River Coquet at Rothbury. Neil walks along the riverbank from the Rothbury bridge, seen in the background. There is a general view of the bridge, town and steep wooded hillside in the background. May and Granny Mac stroll towards camera. The scene switches to Tynemouth with a high angle view towards the south of the Tynemouth Plaza Hotel (that later burned down) and the crowded beach at Longsands, followed by a view north of Tynemouth seafront open air pool, and a distant Saint George church. People enjoy the view on a seafront promenade. There is a general view of the seafront. May, Mac and Neil are sitting on a bench in a Tynemouth street. A shot of Tynemouth bay closes this sequence. Next, there are shots of people at a pool in a coastal resort. Mac, May and Neil are depicted beside an artificial boat pond, probably on a visit to Yarmouth or Skegness. A brief interior portrait of Grandpa Hugh McQueen in his parlour reading, with a clock pictured in the background. Olive and Neil play in the waves crashing on Tynemouth beach. Grandfather Mac, Neil and Olive walk along the cliff top Percy Park Road, Tynemouth, on their way back home to Seafield View. Mac is fishing and speaks to camera. There is a general exterior view of Blickling Hall, a stately home in Norfolk, followed by a shot over the heads of a crowd towards the hall. HRH Queen Mary emerges from the entrance of Blickling Hall with a male escort (as King George had died), watched by large crowds. Other official guests follow behind. There is a general view of HRH Queen Mary with bouquet standing with other official dignitaries in a decorated marquee, surrounded by a large crowd. There are various shots of a historical pageant in Blickling Hall courtyard, probably St George’s Day celebrations, which include the entrance of a princess on horseback, medieval dance, a religious procession with sedan and crosses, two men wear a dragon costume, and the slaying of the dragon by Saint George. After the performance, Queen Mary and her escorts walk back through the crowds towards the sculptured entrance of Blickling Hall. The film returns to scenes of family gatherings with May, Mac and Olive, Uncle Norman and Auntie Maggie outside a house. Next, there is a general view of people at an outdoors swimming pool in a park, possibly in Norfolk. Neil dives into the pool. May is sitting with two friends in a park. There is a shot of a boating lake with elaborate waterfall and Chinese style building in the background. May and Mac stroll with the couple through the park Neil stands, arms crossed, in his extra large football shorts hoiked up to his armpits, and walks towards camera. A shot follows of the budgie at the Shipley Road house. Olive and her Grandpa Neasham (her mother’s father) and another woman are in a garden. Grandpa Neasham, with trilby hat and pipe, poses with other McQueen family members, who wave at camera. Various shots show Grandpa Neasham fast asleep in a chair by a window. Next, Grandpa Neasham and Olive are outside in bright sunshine. May’s brother Bob pushes his baby son, Alan Neasham, in a pram outside the McQueen family home at Seafield View, Tynemouth.