Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 21207 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
HOLIDAY: WHITLEY BAY 1935 | 1935 | 1935-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 9.5mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 11 mins Credits: Organisation: Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association Genre: Amateur Subject: Seaside |
Summary This amateur film documents a holiday in Whitley Bay during the summer of 1935. Holiday makers enjoy time on the beach and promenade, and activities such as putting, bowls and tennis. The final part of the film looks at some of the amusements that are on offer at Whitley Bay including rides and attractions at Spanish City. The film was made by a member of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA). |
Description
This amateur film documents a holiday in Whitley Bay during the summer of 1935. Holiday makers enjoy time on the beach and promenade, and activities such as putting, bowls and tennis. The final part of the film looks at some of the amusements that are on offer at Whitley Bay including rides and attractions at Spanish City. The film was made by a member of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA).
Title: Holiday: Whitley Bay 1935
The film opens with an exterior...
This amateur film documents a holiday in Whitley Bay during the summer of 1935. Holiday makers enjoy time on the beach and promenade, and activities such as putting, bowls and tennis. The final part of the film looks at some of the amusements that are on offer at Whitley Bay including rides and attractions at Spanish City. The film was made by a member of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA).
Title: Holiday: Whitley Bay 1935
The film opens with an exterior view of the Waverley Hotel (now Rex Hotel) on the corner of Promenade and South Parade in Whitley Bay, followed by general views of smartly dressed people walking along the promenade. A man rents out deck chairs from a small hut near the beach.
General view showing the promenade and beach crowded with beach tents and holiday makers. A man is in a rowing boat near the swimmers.
A woman wearing a long coat walks down from the Promenade towards the beach. Two young women in bathing costumes leave the beach for the promenade. They see the camera, smile and wave. The woman in a long coat continues down onto the beach.
On the beach there are shots of people in bathing costumes, sunbathing or relaxing in deck chairs. A man sells souvenirs (?) from a wicker basket. A couple look through his wares of booklets and flags.
At the open-air sea swimming pool at Table Rocks, children play and build sand castles. Two toddlers splash and fool around in the water.
While the grown-ups relax and watch, young children take part in a wheelbarrow race, followed by a sack race.
A man and young girl on horseback trot across the beach. They stop and a woman helps the child off the horse. A number of small children ride along the beach in a small horse drawn carriage.
A family group go for a paddle in the sea. St Mary's Lighthouse can be seen in the background. There are general views of holiday makers in the sea. A man walks from the sea into a beach tent to change.
A woman pours water from a boiling kettle into a teapot. Two families enjoy a picnic on the beach at a small table covered with a cloth. The table is laid with china plates and cups.
A group are lined up together on the beach for a game of leapfrog, a man jumping onto the back of the line. The group hold. A second person runs and jumps onto the group and they all fall over.
Beside the seawall, a man uses a walking stick to conduct a group of seated holiday makers in a sing-song. Crowds watch from the cliffs above while one of the group on the beach plays a banjo.
The film cuts back to the promenade and shots of people out for a stroll. Beside a canopied seating area, a group play a game of draughts using oversized pieces, moving them with hooked sticks.
A woman walks through a wooden gate onto a bowling green. A sign planted in the ground reads 'Putting Green. 2d per round each person'. The woman pays a park attendant for a ticket. Various shots follow of the woman playing shots on the putting green. These sequences are intercut with views of older men playing bowls on a green with an audience.
General views of tennis courts and people playing in their white sports clothes follow. The woman previously playing bowls plays singles tennis with a male opponent.
A woman sells ice cream sandwiches from a small freezer beside the bowling green. Two young boys standing beside the vendor enjoy ice cream in a cone.
A sign attached to a gate reads 'The Orchestra Play - Morning The Links, Afternoon Children's Pool, Evening The Links'. The film cuts to show a conductor and brass band under a striped marquee in gardens at The Links. People are strolling or sitting in deck chairs nearby.
At the entrance to the park, a woman sells crabs, muscles and other seafood from a table. She scoops crab meat out of a shell. General view of another seafood seller beside her.
People stroll along the promenade.
General view of the Spanish City entrance to the Rotunda, advertising the Empress Ballroom and 'Promenade Fun City'.
Inside Spanish City, crowds wander around and enjoy themselves in the fairground. Young children ride on the ‘Aeroplane' ride. Two couples enjoy themselves on the Virginia Reel roller coaster.
A woman on a stall sells a Mickey Mouse toy, which she demonstrates can be walked with the use of a stick. A game stall displays mechanical laughing clown heads in a row. A man places ping-pong balls into one of the clown’s mouths.
An attendant pushes a roller coaster car, which then begins to climb on the track. Travelling shots from the roller coaster car follow.
General views of people riding on a carousel, and a shot from the carousel in motion.
Children play on paddle boats on a boating lake. Two girls get off the ride and another couple are ready to get on.
From the entrance of the Empress Ballroom, three people climb the stairs to go inside.
Three young women walk arm-in-arm along the promenade. General view of the promenade and beach looking down from the cliffs.
Waves roll gently onto the beach: St Mary's Lighthouse can be seen in the distance.
The film ends with a couple watching the sun go down from the railings of the promenade.
Title: The End
Context
All set for a Spanish City stroll with hordes of fun-loving holiday makers at Whitley Bay in the 1930s.
Bright and breezy Whitley Bay welcomes stylish sun seekers during a 1930s Race Week and revels in its fame as the ’Blackpool of the North East’. Filmed less than a year before the Jarrow March, this amateur film revisits the languor and exuberance of an escape to the Tyneside seaside town between the wars. Holiday makers forget their troubles at the Spanish City amusement park filled with...
All set for a Spanish City stroll with hordes of fun-loving holiday makers at Whitley Bay in the 1930s.
Bright and breezy Whitley Bay welcomes stylish sun seekers during a 1930s Race Week and revels in its fame as the ’Blackpool of the North East’. Filmed less than a year before the Jarrow March, this amateur film revisits the languor and exuberance of an escape to the Tyneside seaside town between the wars. Holiday makers forget their troubles at the Spanish City amusement park filled with exciting rides such as the figure-of-eight rollercoaster and Virginia Reel. Opened on 14th May 1910, the Spanish City theatre and pleasure gardens symbolised seaside holidays and fairground romance to generations of Geordies. It was topped by an iconic ferro-concrete dome, of national significance as the largest freestanding dome in Britain after St Paul's Cathedral. The Virginia Reel ran from 1925 to the 50s and was built at Spanish City by its inventor Henry Elmer Riehl, who constructed his first ride in 1908 at Coney Island’s Luna Park, USA, the blueprint for all early amusement parks. Also pictured are fairground stalls featuring a macabre mechanical clown game and the latest marching Mickey Mouse toys, an early example of cartoon character merchandising by Walt Disney. |