Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22024 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| CAR GAMES | 1970 | 1970-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 9.5mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 6 mins 35 secs Credits: Leonard Winter Genre: Amateur Subject: Transport |
| Summary Amateur record of the Tees-Side Bond Club Gymkhana of 1970, featuring many Bond Minicars and 3-wheeler (also known as a micro-car or bubblecar) enthusiasts. It was made by Middlesbrough resident and Cleveland Cine Society member Leonard Winter. The film is part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection. |
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Description
Amateur record of the Tees-Side Bond Club Gymkhana of 1970, featuring many Bond Minicars and 3-wheeler (also known as a micro-car or bubblecar) enthusiasts. It was made by Middlesbrough resident and Cleveland Cine Society member Leonard Winter. The film is part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection.
A three wheeler car drives along a road in the North Yorkshire moors.
Title: Len Winter Presents
Two men are huddled together over a car engine...
Amateur record of the Tees-Side Bond Club Gymkhana of 1970, featuring many Bond Minicars and 3-wheeler (also known as a micro-car or bubblecar) enthusiasts. It was made by Middlesbrough resident and Cleveland Cine Society member Leonard Winter. The film is part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection.
A three wheeler car drives along a road in the North Yorkshire moors.
Title: Len Winter Presents
Two men are huddled together over a car engine (filmed from rear). Close-up of the front bonnet of a Bond Minicar 3-wheeler. Next, there are close-ups of the marques for Bond, Reliant, and Cortina. A fast montage of different marques follows. A Bond Minicar (Registration no. JXG 817F) drives toward camera.
Title: Car Games
A Bond Minicar motors along a country lane. A further two three wheeler cars are driving in a line of traffic on an A road. A three wheeler drives over a bridge. Various cars gather in a field for a car gymkhana, including a Vauxhall Viva and Cortina. The field is full of vehicles, including a few motorbikes. Another Bond three wheeler is picked out in the field. A driver gets out of her car and a toddler plays with the radiator on another car. There’s a close-up of a sign in the back window of a car, which reads ‘The Tees-Side Bond Club Gymkhana 1970’. There’s another sign for the British Motorcycle Owners Club (BMOC) Tees-Side Section.
Various shots record the run up to the gymkhana as contestants mingle and are checked off a list by a young woman official wearing a floral mini dress, her hair in bunches.
A starter brings down a flag at the start of a gymkhana event, cars of different makes heading off in their lanes. There’s a close-up of a pail full of magnetic fish. The object of the course is to hook a fish and clip it on a metal peg stuck in the ground. A Ford Anglia contestant is first up, followed by other competitors. Close-up of a fish dangling from the peg.
A boy blows up a balloon. Multi-coloured balloons have been blown up for another test at the gymkhana event. Contestants lean out of their cars and use a staff to hook a balloon, a Mini and Ford Anglia taking part. There’s a general view of the gymkhana ground, cooling towers and tall chimney stacks visible in the far background.
A man is checking his 3-wheeler car engine. Another entrant is laying on a tartan blanket, eating an iced lolly. A few teenagers are resting against a Vauxhall Viva, also eating iced lollies. People picnic beside their cars. One young woman is dressed in a wing collar mini dress and wears whacky sunglasses.
The starter brings down his flag for the next gymkhana event. Contestants attempt another timed ‘hooking’ course, this time with rings. Families enjoy watching the gymkhana events.
A gymkhana official places a cloth bag over the head of one of the competitors. He is led to the driving seat of his car, a Vauxhall Viva. A little girl runs up to the camera. A red three wheeler drives the course, followed by a white Vauxhall Viva. All the drivers in this event drive blind with cloth bags over their heads. One man stumbles as he tries to find his car door handle, getting into a Mini with a learner driver plate. He then attempts to drive around an obstacle course.
Still of a plan of two of the gymkhana test courses, including a timed driving test and a towing race.
A Mini starts the timed driving test around obstacles. Travelling shots from a car driving behind two contestants.
There’s a shot of the gymkhana trophy and prizes, Quality Streets one of the prizes. Leonard Winter is reading out the winners. A young man with sideburns accepts his prize, grinning happily. The gymkhana crowd lounge around watching the awards. A woman driver wins the cup trophy.
A toddler poses next to his parent’s car. Cars begin to drive away from the event. Two men again huddle over a car engine.
Title: The Finish
Context
This talented amateur filmmaker, Leonard Winter, often blurred the distinction between home movie and fiction in his work. He made many 9.5mm films between the 1930s and 70s, the earliest involving friends from the South London cycling club, until World War Two intervened in his creative activities. From 1946 onwards, his films usually featured his wife and daughter. The family moved from the South East to Middlesbrough in the late 1940s and Teesside and North Yorkshire are the locations in...
This talented amateur filmmaker, Leonard Winter, often blurred the distinction between home movie and fiction in his work. He made many 9.5mm films between the 1930s and 70s, the earliest involving friends from the South London cycling club, until World War Two intervened in his creative activities. From 1946 onwards, his films usually featured his wife and daughter. The family moved from the South East to Middlesbrough in the late 1940s and Teesside and North Yorkshire are the locations in many subsequent films, bar holiday movies shot further afield.
He also screened his films with the Cleveland Cine Club, and acted and assisted in joint productions such as the strangely haunting film The Glade, a film with a dash of distinctly 70s English amateur weirdness, pitched somewhere between Peter Weir’s hypnotic Australian drama “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (released in 1975) and 60s American TV series, “The Twilight Zone”. He also took the main role in a film by Betty Cook, A Tale of the Unexpected. As President of the Cleveland Cine Club and the North East Cine Society, this amateur film-maker was immersed in local film production and made her own home movies from the 1960s through to the 1980s. It’s worth remembering that the role of amateur women filmmakers was frequently underplayed in magazines that covered amateur cinematography in Britain. Jean Winter, wife of Leonard, has not been credited but almost certainly filmed along with her husband in some staged scenarios and was herself a member of Cleveland Cine Club. In 1978 she documented the Teesdale Country Fair on Super 8 film and provided the commentary track. As with the classic Mini designed for BMC by Sir Alec Issigonis, the Bond Minicar, also known as a ‘bubblecar’ had its followers. It was developed by Lawrie Bond, who had useful experience in the aeronautical field, as part of Sharp’s Commercials Ltd (renamed Bond Cars Limited in 1964). Built at Bond’s premises at Longridge, the simple, austere and fuel-efficient microcar was first on the production line in January 1949, its three wheels instead of the customary four a strange sight on the road. It was advertised in April 1950 as the world’s most economical car, partly thanks to attracting cheaper insurance and purchase tax, but also because it could be driven on a motor cycle license. In a post-war climate this was popular and so began an 18 year run of Villiers two-stroke powered Minicars production, finally ending with the Mark G in December 1966. Its cute eccentricity continues to attract enthusiastic owners and rallies such as the Teesside event documented by Leonard Winter in the 1970s still take place. There's even a Bubblecar Museum. References: http://www.bondownersclub.co.uk/bond.html |
