Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 1239 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| LEEDS CHILDREN'S DAY | 1955 | 1955-01-01 |
|
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 7 mins 36 secs Credits: Jack Eley Subject: Fashions |
| Summary This is a film made by Jack Eley showing the displays put on in Roundhay Park for Leeds Children's Day. |
|
Description
This is a film made by Jack Eley showing the displays put on in Roundhay Park for Leeds Children's Day.
Title: 'Leeds: The Queen of Childrens (sic) Day is crowned at Roundhay Park.'
The film begins with a carnival through the streets of Leeds, led by the Children's Day Queen waving to the crowd from a car. The cars are followed by a convoy of floats mounted on lorries depicting different themes including Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, and representing schools and...
This is a film made by Jack Eley showing the displays put on in Roundhay Park for Leeds Children's Day.
Title: 'Leeds: The Queen of Childrens (sic) Day is crowned at Roundhay Park.'
The film begins with a carnival through the streets of Leeds, led by the Children's Day Queen waving to the crowd from a car. The cars are followed by a convoy of floats mounted on lorries depicting different themes including Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, and representing schools and other organisations. Inside Roundhay Park, a huge crowd watch a parade of children in fancy dress accompanied by parents or teachers. A small girl, also dressed as a queen, is sitting on the grass surrounded by other children all dressed up. Then another parade comes onto the field led by the Mayor and the first Queen. The Queen and her attendants get onto a stage to the accompaniment of bugles. Here she is crowned by the Mayoress, and the Mayor makes a speech. The Queen also makes a speech before making her way to her seat to applause from the crowd. At the end of the speeches, there is a close-up of the Mayor and Mayoress and the Queen. They look on as there is an athletic display and a boy's gymnasium display. This is followed by younger boys and girls performing maypole dances across the field, and then a display for road safety. After this the field is again crowded with children performing highly energetic dances, followed by a making colourful patterns.
Context
John (aka Jack) Eley was a Leeds-based amateur filmmaker who was part of the Leeds Cine Club, Mercury Movie Makers, The Oval group and others. Working almost exclusively in 16mm he was a prolific and consummate filmmaker with a diverse range of styles to his credit from documentary and actuality films to travelogue and light hearted narrative films. Like many of the members of the original Leeds Camera Club he made films in his own right as well as contributing to larger collaborative...
John (aka Jack) Eley was a Leeds-based amateur filmmaker who was part of the Leeds Cine Club, Mercury Movie Makers, The Oval group and others. Working almost exclusively in 16mm he was a prolific and consummate filmmaker with a diverse range of styles to his credit from documentary and actuality films to travelogue and light hearted narrative films. Like many of the members of the original Leeds Camera Club he made films in his own right as well as contributing to larger collaborative projects under the banner of Mercury Movie Makers, a well-regarded amateur cine group that was an offshoot of LCC specialising in 16mm.
His filmmaking is precise and often characterised by a wry sense of humour and the use of fairly advanced filmmaking techniques, sometimes using in-camera effects that often included masking the gate and creating picture in picture superimpositions - using extensive technical knowledge to tell the story in imaginative ways. The range of his technical ambition even stretched to the incorporation of stop-motion animation as can be seen in films like KELLY'S EYE (1972) and the early children’s film LITTLE CINDERS (1952). The technique of animating still images and 35mm slides as demonstrated in the instructional film he made MOVIES FROM STILLS (c.1976) can be seen in the opening sequences of his film MINSTER IN PERIL (1965-1967). The Jack Eley archive was given to the Yorkshire Film Archive in 2009 and contains a large collection of films some that he made and some that he owned spanning nearly fifty years, from 1932 up until 1980. LEEDS CHILDREN'S DAY (1955) was made in 1955 at Roundhay Park and documents the spectacular annual Leeds Children's Day gala - a celebration of youth and achievement in which schools from all over the city would be asked to take part. Each year a Queen of Children’s Day would be crowned amongst a day of processions, dance performances and athletic displays. The event was organised by local teachers and included pupils from just about every school in Leeds. It must have been an amazing feat of organisation to bring all the schools together for the rehearsals necessary to produce such an impressive display of synchronised dancing and gymnastics. The importance of the event in the Leeds calendar is attested to by the number of films that have emerged over the years documenting successive events; the earliest held at YFA being CHILDREN'S DAY AT ROUNDHAY PARK AND GOLDEN ACRE PARK (1937-38) photographed in 1937 by Frederick Dyson. Also in the YFA collection there is the Cyril and Betty Ramsden film CHILDREN'S DAY LEEDS (1951) and The Yorkshire Post were there to document the event in 1959 LEEDS CHILDREN'S DAY (1959). British Pathé made a black and white newsreel film on the Leeds event a few years later in 1957 which is available to watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pl9qxXSMGk. The great advantage that Eley’s amateur film has over the later professional Pathé film however is that the Eley film is in colour - filmed on glorious 16mm Kodachrome! The result means that the parades and displays caught on camera are brought vividly to life; the colours of the film are stunning especially during the ‘coronation’ sequences. The new queen is crowned draped in a vibrant red cloak and trail set against the lush green of the Roundhay Soldier’s Field. What is also striking to the contemporary viewer is the highly sophisticated orchestration of the event with processions, dances and drills all seamlessly choreographed. The action that takes place during the staged set pieces especially the lightly humorous road safety piece is picked up by Eley’s camera in remarkable detail especially considering the distance at which it is filmed. An interesting companion piece to this film would be the Ramsden film of 1951 CHILDREN'S DAY LEEDS (1951). Cyril and Betty Ramsden were a filmmaking couple that made extremely high quality amateur films usually on 16mm winning many competitions and accolades from Leeds Camera Club. The film they made of Leeds Children’s Day in 1951 is referred to in a discussion for BBC a programme Nation on Film broadcast in 2006. http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/childrens-day-leeds#sthash.JpRji2kU.dpuf In the programme, Martin Wainright a writer recalls his early memories of Leeds Children’s Day “I was entered by my mother for the bonny baby or beautiful baby competition, needless to say I didn't win and was near the bottom. Vast people turned out and I think one of the explanations was that there wasn't the range of home entertainment. So to go out and participate in some great civic spectacle that was underway was terrific”. According to Social historian Selina Todd the ceremony was ,”defiantly meant to be something which off-sets the drabness of everyday life in the early 1950s, that gives ordinary people a chance to dress up and to be part of something quite grand if only for one day.” Other recollections of the day based on documents donated to YFA refer to the’ May Queen procession’ which took place on the first weekend in July at Roundhay Park. These accounts corroborate the claim that every school in the city was encouraged to take part and state that there was a procession of floats that made their way through the city ending at midday. In this film numerous floats can be seen including an entrant from Ellerby Road Infants School ; a school with its own filmic history see the context for another film in the YFA collection BROUGHT TO JUSTICE (1953). The contemporary account states that the day was structured so that the schools performed a rehearsed display together and later in the day the competitive games began with each school competing against each other. When the event ended by late afternoon spectators and participants were shuttled away on a specially chartered fleet of trams. More memories about Leeds Children’s Day can be found here in this interesting Yorkshire Evening Post article from 2014 http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/royal-nod-to-celebrate-history-of-leeds-children-s-day-1-6440738 The event had become something a regular feature of the calendar for Roundhay with the first Children’s Day taking place in 1922. Roundhay Park itself is situated 3 miles north of Leeds city centre and with over 700 acres is one of the largest public parks in Europe. Over the years it has been the venue for many large gatherings, sporting events and the annual fireworks and bonfire on November 5th. The natural amphitheatre at the centre of the park forms an outdoor arena that in the 1980s was a major pop concert venue. The Rolling Stones played Roundhay in 1982 with some footage taken by West Yorkshire Police held by the Yorkshire Film Archive ROLLING STONES CONCERT ROUNDHAY PARK (1982). Bruce Springsteen played the last date of his iconic ‘Born in the U.S.A’ tour in 1985 and other stadium acts like Genesis, Madonna , Michael Jackson, Simple Minds, and U2 all played in subsequent years. In more recent times Robbie Williams performed to a crowd estimated to be in the region of 100,000 people in 2006 to high acclaim. Soldiers Field which features in most of the film is so called as it was used as a gathering place for soldiers in the First World War and the terracing cut into the hillside is known as 'Hill 60', named to remember Leeds soldiers who died in the first word way around 'Hill 60' in Ypres, Belgium. Roundhay Park itself is featured in many YFA films, including ROUNDHAY PARK LEEDS (1945), LEEDS MARKS TIME (1984), and in VESPA RALLY (1959). The Leeds Childrens’ Days are remembered affectionately by many Leeds citizens and for the children that took part in the displays and activities the memories of taking part will last a life time. Sadly there is no such equivalent today; in its time the Leeds Children's Day was one of the biggest festivals of youth staged anywhere in Britain it ran from 1922 until 1963. Sources Royal nod to celebrate history of Leeds Children’s day, YEP Sat 15th Feb 2014 Friends of Roundhay Park Newsletter (PDF). July 2006. Retrieved 23 April 2014. Roundhay Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundhay_Park#cite_note-8 Accessed 7/7/15 |
