Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 21343 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
SLIPWAYS | 1934 | 1934-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 31 mins 29 secs Credits: Organisation: Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers' Association Directed by James Cameron Junr. Photographed by L. Bonser Cast: Bill - Robert Jobling Peter - Alan F. Dodds Peter's Wife - Mary Thompson Credits: The Players Molly - Lilly Logan The Girl - Doris Graham The Mother - Mrs. E. Thompson Genre: Drama Subject: Working Life Urban Life Ships Seaside Industry |
Summary This amateur drama contrasts the lives of two brothers employed in marine engineering on Tyneside, with heavy industry such as shipbuilding hit hard by the Depression in 1930s Britain. One brother shirks work and evening classes, and turns to womanising, gambling and crime. The other works hard and is successful. The film includes footage of the an ... |
Description
This amateur drama contrasts the lives of two brothers employed in marine engineering on Tyneside, with heavy industry such as shipbuilding hit hard by the Depression in 1930s Britain. One brother shirks work and evening classes, and turns to womanising, gambling and crime. The other works hard and is successful. The film includes footage of the annual Hoppings travelling funfair held on the Town Moor, Newcastle upon Tyne, the new Brough Park Greyhound Stadium in Byker, and of Whitley Bay....
This amateur drama contrasts the lives of two brothers employed in marine engineering on Tyneside, with heavy industry such as shipbuilding hit hard by the Depression in 1930s Britain. One brother shirks work and evening classes, and turns to womanising, gambling and crime. The other works hard and is successful. The film includes footage of the annual Hoppings travelling funfair held on the Town Moor, Newcastle upon Tyne, the new Brough Park Greyhound Stadium in Byker, and of Whitley Bay. This fiction film is a Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) production.
Credit: A Newcastle and District A.C.A. Production
Title: “Slipways”
Credits: Directed by James Cameron Junr. Photographed by L. Bonser
Credits:
The Players
Bill – Robert Jobling
Peter – Alan F. Dodds
Peter’s Wife – Mary Thompson
Credits:
The Players
Molly – Lilly Logan
The Girl – Doris Graham
The Mother – Mrs. E. Thompson
Peter and Bill have tea together with their mother. It’s nearly 7 o’clock. She tells them to get a move on, or they’ll be late for their evening classes.
Title: Hurry or you will be late for the classes
The two men gulp down more tea and hurry off. They walk up a cobbled street and stop outside a college or school building. Peter gestures to the entrance gate. But Bill has no intention of going to the classes.
Title: I am not going
Bill heads off elsewhere. Peter shakes his head.
Bill walks across the Town Moor in Newcastle upon Tyne smoking a cigarette, the Hoppings travelling fair in the background. A young woman passes him and gives him a sideways glance. He turns around and catches her up. She’s going to the fairground and invites him along. The two wander through a busy Hoppings, the Helter Skelter seen in the background. Bill pays for a ride with the woman on the exciting Chair-o-Plane (or swinger), its steam centre engine belching out smoke. Close-ups of the two enjoying the ride follow. The ride slows to a standstill. Next, Peter pays for some balls at W. Cowies traditional knock-em-down game stall, the young woman having a go at winning a prize.
The new couple walk down a shaded path next to an old wall, his arm draped over her shoulder. The two smoke a cigarette. When the cigarettes are smoked, they share a passionate kiss. Afterwards, he checks his watch. He rather rudely makes his excuses and says he has to go. She glowers a little, shrugs and wanders off alone.
Bill and Peter’s mother knits by a fire roaring in an old kitchen range. [A little strange as the Hoppings fair is a summer event.] She looks at the clock. It’s twenty-five minutes to ten. Peter is almost back home, his books in hand, when Bill catches him up and grabs a few books from him. Peter tells him off for his deceit.
Title: Mother ought to know how you waste her money.
They let themselves into their mother’s house.
Workers are busy in a marine engineering workshop, including Peter and Bill. Peter gets on with his work diligently. Bill shares a joke with two young apprentices. The gaffer walks in, checking their work and giving them orders. Bill lights a cigarette at one of the work benches. The supervisor tells him to put it out.
Title: Knocking off time
The apprentices and engineers stop work and leave the workshop.
Title: Sunday
Peter lights a fire in the old range on Sunday morning. All spruced up in a Knickerbocker suit, he goes for a walk, smoking a pipe, and waits for his girlfriend in a park. A young woman carrying a small suitcase meets him in the park. They greet each other and head off to catch a County bus. They board the bus for the countryside. Arm in arm, they wander through the countryside, pick a spot next to a stream, and have a picnic. His girlfriend notices he’s pre-occupied.
Title: I’m worried about Bill. He’ll get the sack one day.
They chat and enjoy the picnic.
Back at home, Bill is still in bed, smoking and reading the News of the World. A front page headline announces: “Plans to revive our shipping. Bold scheme for scrapping tonnage. Remedy for unemployed.” His mother comes into his bedroom.
Title: You must get up Bill. It is dinner time.
Annoyed, she tells him off. He turns over lazily and just goes back to sleep.
Meanwhile, Peter and his girlfriend enjoy their day out in the country. They pack up the picnic and stroll back to catch the bus.
Title: Time Passes
Peter is at work in the dock office. A group of shipyard workers walk through the docks after their shift. Peter skulks along after them. He looks over at the dock office. He sneaks in, dressed in his dirty overalls, and starts rifling through the pockets of a jacket hanging up there. Peter comes in and tells him off. His brother makes excuses. Peter loans him a few quid, and Bill heads off from the dock office.
Punters make their way to the ticket office at Brough Park Greyhound Stadium, at The Fossway, Byker, in Newcastle. Greyhounds are walked round the track by their handlers. The stadium is packed with spectators. By the side of the track, Bill is studying form. He takes out a few of the notes his brother loaned him. The greyhounds are put into their starting boxes. The mechanical hare sets off round the course, and the greyhounds race off, chasing the bait. Bill watches the race closely, but loses. He tears up his betting slip. The next set of dogs are led onto the course by their handlers. The bookmakers are taking bets.
The lid lifts on the starters’ block as the next greyhound race starts up. Slow motion footage of the greyhounds in action, rounding a bend on the track. Bill counts the change he has left after a bad day’s betting at the stadium.
Peter is digging over flower beds in the front garden of a new semi-detached 1930s house. In the background, there’s an advertisement for “E. Dryden builder houses for sale £675”. Bill walks up and leans over the garden wall to have a word with his brother. He tries to borrow money again. Motor cars are parked on the estate road.
Title: No Bill, you’ve had your last penny from me.
Peter continues digging in the garden.
On a winter day, Peter’s girlfriend, now wife, dressed in a smart pencil skirt suit and matching hat, walks down onto a terrace overlooking the sea, possibly at Longsands. Tynemouth. Peter hurries to meet her there, and is a little late. She looks at her watch, and he apologises. He puts his arm around her and they walk down onto the beach.
Title: One evening later.
Peter, his girlfriend and a male friend are enjoying a night in singing around an upright piano. Bill sneaks round the back of his brother’s house and lets himself into the back door. In the living room, on the sofa in front of a coal fire, the three are enjoying looking through a photo album, laughing together. Bill has broken in and is rifling through drawers in a dining room sideboard, looking for money to steal. He opens up Peter’s wife’s purse. Peter’s wife comes into the dining room, leaving Peter and friend in the other room. Bill hides behind the door. Peter offers his friend a cigarette. Back in the dining room, Peter’s wife discovers her purse open on the sideboard and all the drawers open. Bill jumps out and attacks her, and escapes. Peter and his friend chase after the intruder.
Back in the house, Peter gives his shocked wife a drink.
Down at the docks, Bill is working at the workshops and fiddles with a cramp attached to a marine part hoisted on chains. Bill’s brother, now a supervising engineer, meets the group of workers and apprentices to look at the ship part. Whilst examining it, one engineered part falls from its hoist, and hits his brother on the head, knocking him out. The brother is sneaking a look around a corner at the accident. The workers try to bandage Bill’s bloody wound with a handkerchief. They rush off to get a board to use as a stretcher. They carry him away.
Peter is lying in his bed at home with his head and eye bandaged, and is visited by a doctor and nurse. The doctor takes his pulse.
His brother Bill pays a visit to his brother’s home. He lingers at the garden fence, trying to decide whether to go in. He is a little remorseful. Finally, he walks away.
In the bedroom, the doctor shakes Peter’s hand and leaves. The nurse plumps the pillow and check’s Peter’s bandage, tucking him up in the bed. She starts to read from a notebook, but leaves when the patient’s wife comes into the bedroom and checks on her husband. She kisses him lovingly and they chat.
Back at his mother’s house, Bill is seated with the mother and a young woman, feeling penitent. The girl and mother are comforting him, but he shakes his head.
Title: I caused that accident at the works.
They continue to reason with Bill.
Title: We must go to Peter’s
He shakes his head. But finally he accompanies his mother and the girl to Peter’s house. They ring the bell and are let in. They gather around Peter’s bed. Bill apologises.
Title: All right Bill. Forget about it.
The brothers shake hands.
In the last scene, the two brothers, Peter’s wife and Bill’s female friend walk arm-in-arm along the beach at Whitley Bay. They skim stones and fool around. St Mary’s Island can be seen in the background.
Title: The End
[Brough Park Greyhound Stadium opened on 23 June 1928.]
Context
This film was produced by the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA), one of the earliest British cine clubs, formed by James Cameron in 1927. His son, James Cameron Junior, directed Slipways in the club's first decade. His daughter Janet also worked behind the camera for early ACA productions. For Slipways the owner of a photographic store in Newcastle, Leslie Bonser, stepped in as the cinematographer. The organisation had a diverse set of members, from...
This film was produced by the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA), one of the earliest British cine clubs, formed by James Cameron in 1927. His son, James Cameron Junior, directed Slipways in the club's first decade. His daughter Janet also worked behind the camera for early ACA productions. For Slipways the owner of a photographic store in Newcastle, Leslie Bonser, stepped in as the cinematographer. The organisation had a diverse set of members, from documentarians to story tellers. Each different film genre gives an insight into the locations, society and culture of the north east region at the time of making. Although low budget productions (funded out of their own pocket or through membership fees and donations), the ACA crews had high ambitions, as this film and several other ‘cine stories’ made in the first decade show. Newcastle & District ACA was one of five clubs formed in the country that first year, which shared prints of their productions with each other for the regular film shows. After more than 90 years as an active organisation, the club was still operating in Newcastle in 2019.
Independent amateur filmmakers were not the only ones producing lower budget films in the 1930s. Due to the Cinematograph Films Act 1927, cinemas were required to screen a percentage of British movies and meet a quota with the aim of stimulating an ailing industry, which in turn led to production teams shooting what came to be labelled ‘quota quickies’. They were made on a shoestring with only a few days in production, creating B movies that Matthew Sweet exaggerates were ‘so transcendentally boring, they were projected in empty cinemas while the charladies Hoovered’. Names that learned their craft in this low-budget movie-making include Robert Morley, David Lean, Errol Flynn, Terence Rattigan, and a young actress named Vivien Leigh. When Slipways was made the North East was going through a period of economic depression, not unlike other parts of the world. During the 1930s and beyond, Newcastle and the North East were reliant on heavy industries based on coal, iron and steel, like engineering and shipbuilding, with Swan Hunter shipyards being one of the dominant companies on the Tyne. Entire neighbourhoods were built on the dominance of shipbuilding, as towns such as Wallsend expanded due to the influence of a thriving industry. Shipbuilding had been prominent in the region since the late 1700s when Sunderland was the centre of the industry. The geographical location of these North East cities being so close to the North Sea with access via both the River Tyne and River Wear made it more than suited to the task of shipbuilding. It was not only the building of the ships which was carried out here but also the pioneering of developments within engineering, such as the steam turbine invented by Charles Algernon Parsons in Tyneside. The region suffered massively during the global economic downturn. For example, in 1933 when Palmer’s Shipyard in Jarrow closed, it left two-thirds of workers on the dole and led to the Jarrow Crusade against the level of poverty and unemployment, which blighted the region. Almost 30 shipyards closed during this period. Similarly, upon pit closures in villages in surrounding counties, there were unemployment figures of 80% and upwards. It’s worth noting that around London, however, some parts of the economy thrived: the suburbs enjoyed a building boom, helped by cheap interest rates. In the spirit of that era, Slipways is extremely moralising, contrasting two brothers and their attitudes to work in the marine engineering industry on the Tyne, one a ne'er-do-well who gambles and steals, the other a chap who succeeds by hard work and moves into a new build semi-detached house in Tynemouth or Whitley Bay. Film-making was an expensive hobby at this time and the amateurs involved would have been from the relatively well-off upper middle classes who would not have suffered as deeply during the Depression. Perhaps there is a reflection of this in the message of the story. Within the film, the work ethic of the North East is promoted. This could have been an important message for the establishment to push in the face of mass unemployment and the failure of industry within the region during the 1930s depression. This is more than just implied, as the headline of the newspaper read by Bill announces, ‘Plans to revive our shipping.’ This not only touches on the failing of the industry but also the possibility of jobs. Unemployment within the shipbuilding industry by the end of the 1930s was 45%, due to the redundancy of many workers. Tonnage produced in 1932 was also drastically reduced, totaling 85% less than in 1929. This came from a fall in demand and a rise in competition. Because of this, a key trait of hard work in the North East became prominent, perpetuated by fear of losing jobs and gratefulness to be in work. Workers were instilled with this sense of productivity. This message is lost on brother Bill in Slipways who heads off to Newcastle’s Town Moor to enjoy the annual summer Hoppings. In the words of Henry Morley, writing in the 1850s, travelling fairs are ‘the unwritten story of the history of the people’. Newcastle’s Town Moor has, for most of the last 130 plus years, played host to the famous Tyneside fair. The June fair dates back to 1882 when the North of England Temperance Festival was introduced as an alcohol-free counter-attraction to the Race Week. The ‘Hoppings’ name stuck in the 1950s and is thought to derive from the Middle English word “hopping” meaning dance. In the 1930s daily visitors totalled 150,000 on days when the weather was good. In the early years the huge and gaudily painted fairground rides were steam-driven, but took some muscle to move. The elaborate Gallopers and Switchback rides first designed and constructed in 1888, along with their later electrified counterparts, the Scenic Railway, were a highpoint of early fairground imagination, engineering and aesthetics, with carved and decorated cars ranging from dragons to Venetian gondolas and rodeos. Pioneering showman families such as the Farrars, Lings, and the Murphys from South Shields returned to the Hoppings year after year with ever wilder and ingenious constructions. Fairgrounds were amongst the first venues to show moving pictures to local audiences in cinematograph booths back in the late 1800s. In December 1896, Randall Williams introduced the cinematograph at travelling fairs which became a major venue for 'living pictures' in the period up to 1914. The famous bioscope proprietor Mamie Paine was a regular at the Hoppings, and in 1907 showman William Murphy of Sunderland presented the largest bioscope show ever seen in Newcastle. Sedgewick's American Menagerie are attending this 30s Hoppings, a travelling collection of exotic animals with “King of Wild Animal Trainers Lorenzo” performing. In Victorian times, the Sedgwick Bioscopic Showfront was another pioneer of early cinematic entertainment. Bill also can't resist going to the dogs. There’s some great documentary footage of Brough Park Greyhound Stadium, which opened on 23 June 1928 in an area of Walker already undergoing change at the time. The stadium was constructed south of the Fossway and the kennels sat on the route of Hadrian’s Wall. The first ever race at Brough Park was won by a greyhound called Marvin at odds of 3-1. Greyhound stadium racing was an American import that followed Owen P Smith’s development of a mechanical lure for the dogs, enabling racing on a circular track. The sport successfully spread to England in 1926, with stars such as George Raft and Lana Turner (and later Brad Pitt) spotted at the famous Walthamstow Stadium, opened in 1933 by a one-time illegal bookie. References: http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/news/newcastle-district-aca-treasures-cine-club-world http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1361819/index.html Pimlott, Ben. “THE NORTH EAST: BACK TO THE 1930s?” Political Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 1, Jan. 1981, p. 51 https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/gallery/through-decades-north-east-1930-11030353 https://englandsnortheast.co.uk/1920to1939.html https://englandsnortheast.co.uk/Shipbuilding.html “Shipbuilding in the Great Depression and the 1930s.” Steel, Ships and Men: Cammell Laird, 1924-1993, by Kenneth Warren, Liverpool University Press, 1998, pp.251-260 http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/news/newcastle-district-aca-treasures-cine-club-world https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/watch-90-years-north-east-13386394 https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca/researchandarticles/fairgroundrides https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca/researchandarticles/fairgroundshow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_Stadium Related Collections: http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/aca-news-reel-events-1933 http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/bon-adventure http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/town-moor |