This film, by local filmmaker Kenneth Raynor, captures various activities taking place in a small rural village. The reel contains family weddings at Swallownest Methodist chapel and Aston church. The film also documents country walks down Church Lane (Aston), a working water wheel and other village scenes around Laughton (South Yorks.) Title – I saw this. November 1940. The film opens with various shots of a cloudy sky, before the filmmaker shows a clock tower which has several images of a...

This film, by local filmmaker Kenneth Raynor, captures various activities taking place in a small rural village. The reel contains family weddings at Swallownest Methodist chapel and Aston church. The film also documents country walks down Church Lane (Aston), a working water wheel and other village scenes around Laughton (South Yorks.) Title – I saw this. November 1940. The film opens with various shots of a cloudy sky, before the filmmaker shows a clock tower which has several images of a calendar superimposed over it. Title – Here you are seeing just a few things that became permanent instead of the usual forgotten fleeting moment. Literally, they were snatched out of time. Why these… The first shot shows a bespectacled man looking at the camera. Then there is a brief scene in a sitting room with an open fire; a group of people sit round reading books and enjoying each other’s company. Then two men wearing hats and trench coats stroke a horse in a field. The filmmaker then captures the village of Swallownest in the snow; a woman walks down a snowy street with a basket, shots of snow covered roofs, a woman walking her dog, and finally there are expansive views of snow covered fields. The next sequence features a wedding; the bride and groom stand in the church entrance with the groom wearing a suit, while the bride wears a traditional white dress. A car pulls up outside their reception venue and the bride and groom exit. Inside the wedding venue (what appears to be a church hall) there is a tiered wedding cake and a banner that reads ‘God is love’. A new wedding couple exit a church and the filmmaker gets a close up of a white rose pinned to the groom’s suit. There are then various shots of people in suits and dresses, particularly the filmmaker and his wife, sitting on some grass by a tennis court. They then walk down a country lane and leaf through magazines in deck chairs. The next sequence shows children playing in a school yard. A horse drawn plough harvesting a field, before a man is captured taking a picture with a stills camera. The filmmaker then turns his attention to a watermill and gets several close-ups of the wheel. Following this, a woman walks down a country path and there is a church steeple visible far off in the distance. Then shots of various streets in a village, where the steeple can also be seen. Then a fairly lengthy sequence that shows three women in coats and hats - discernibly of that period - walking through fields and climbing fences. A man then walks towards the camera down a road lined with trees, and a woman sits on a stone wall. A woman on horseback passes the camera, leading two other horses down the road. Various shots of hilly landscapes are captured along with views of a rushing river. A woman the smiles at the camera in a corn in a field, and then there is a brief shot of the clock from beginning of the film. A wedding car pulls up to the pavement, and a woman with a bouquet of flowers is followed out by a man in a suit. Then, outside the church, the bride and groom stand in the entrance; the groom wears a serviceman’s uniform, and the woman wears a much understated coat and hat ensemble. They walk through a crowd of wedding guests who throw confetti over them. The filmmaker then captures the happy couple getting into a car and driving off. There are the shots of various house hold items: clothes line, grandfather clock and an electric fan. The film closes with portrait shots of the filmmaker and his wife in their home.