A compilation reel telling the story on the North East from the early 20th century till the 1950s through amateur, home movie, newsreel, and commercial film. The works of several different filmmakers are included in this reel. Of note is an amateur film by a J. Thompson of children on a camping holiday at Cullercoats in 1933 plus, presumably, the filmmaker’s daughter on the beach at Whitley Bay and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea the same year. The reels also feature other relevant amateur film...

A compilation reel telling the story on the North East from the early 20th century till the 1950s through amateur, home movie, newsreel, and commercial film. The works of several different filmmakers are included in this reel. Of note is an amateur film by a J. Thompson of children on a camping holiday at Cullercoats in 1933 plus, presumably, the filmmaker’s daughter on the beach at Whitley Bay and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea the same year. The reels also feature other relevant amateur film including a visit to Newcastle-upon-Tyne by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth sometime after the ending of World War Two, heavy snowfall around the city during the winter of 1952 and Newcastle preparing for and celebrating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953. Title: GB Present Commercial footage showing two men and a woman sit in a living room, a third man stands nearby setting up a film projector. One of the men turns out the light as they all look towards a screen to watch a movie. From a different commercial film, a performer dressed as a beggar in a Middle-Eastern bazaar sings a song. The film returns to the people watching a film in the living room. Close-up on the woman’s face, she smiles happily and folds into a tube shape a booklet in her hands. Blank A man works to sets up a projector and loads a reel film changes to early newsreel footage of crowds at Gosforth Park Racecourse in 1907 followed by amateur footage of visitors and trains on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria in 1927. Looking down on Northumberland Street in Newcastle large crowds’ line both sides of the street as King George VI, in Naval uniform, and Queen Elizabeth as driven past, the Queen waves at the crowds. With the Royal party having moved on the crowds begin to disburse clogging the road, a lorry and other vehicles attempts to drive through. Title: Pleasant Memories of 1933 Title: Being a series of incidents produced by J. Thompson Summer 1933 Four small child play in a street beside a shop window, a girl bounces a ball in a terraced street. Title: At the Seaside. Cullercoats A steam train comes along a track, a different locomotive pulls into a station. Passengers, mainly children, disembark racing along the platform towards the exit, some stop looking at the camera while others wave. Title: Happy days are here again Passengers, again mainly children, climb off a double-decker bus and cross the road behind the bus. Many are carrying large duffle bags, three older women follow on at the rear. Title: A hurried meal on the grass A woman uses a ladle to pours custard from a bucket onto plate held by some of the children. Some sit in a group on the grass beside a tent, a woman watching over them. Title: Fruit and custard The woman with the bucket of custard takes a sip from the ladle watched by the eating children around her. Title: A little visitor, fancies the custard A group gather around a small child who is spoon fed some of the custard by the woman. Title: Popular items. Which most popular? Title: Bathing On a beach a group of women in bathing costumes sit in the surf kicking and splashing about happily as the waves crash over them. Title: Lunch A group of boys run past several tents, each carrying a plate. Following the boys, the girls racing past the tents. Title: Turned out to graze The girls sit in a group on the grass beside a tent eating. Title: We have no waste. No wonder Two women stand holding the custard bucket, a third holds the ladle which she uses to feed the other two. Everyone laughs. Title: The Pierrots. A popular camp item On a busy beach a man sells ice-cream from the back of a horse-drawn wagon, an Italian name is written across the ice-box; ‘Bertorilli’ Behind the wagon a stage around which a crowd sits watching five actors perform a dance routine. Title: The donkey ride A small girl rides a donkey along the beach. Title: The baker A man stands beside a van parked in a field behind a row of houses. The livery on the van reads ‘Hunter’s’. A woman sits on a wooden pallet while three others swing her back-and-forth. She falls onto the grass, everyone laughs. Title: Our pets Two goats graze beside a row of tents changes to a woman pushing a pram along an empty seaside promenade. Two notes attached to the concrete walls read ‘Bay View’ and ‘Holiday Camp’. Sitting on the grass beside a tent a large group children eat and drink. Title: Upon the Bankside The tent seen previously is one of three erected on grass bank overlooking the beach and sea below. The children sit or stand eating while admiring the view, below the beach is crowded with holidaymakers. From the beach a lifeboat at sea, the men onboard rowing hard. Title: A helping hand, to house the Life Boat Men and women work together to pull the lifeboat from the water onto the beach with ropes. The boat slowly makes its way along the beach to the boathouse. Title: Playing at the Seaside On Whitley Bay beach a young girl paddles in the sea, around her other children play. She rushes away from the surf carrying a bucket and begins to play in the sand. Title: Whitley Bay Aug. 24 The girl, now in a bathing costume, splashing around in the surf and runs happily along the busy beach. Title: Again The sequence above is repeated with her running away across the beach. She fills a bucket with water from a sea pool and pours it into a moat she has created around a sandcastle. She sits in her mothers’ arms as her clothes are changed. The girl sits in a small horse-and-trap which is led across the beach by a young boy, the sequence ends with her crossing a pool by steppingstones. Waves crash over rocks, in the distance a lighthouse, possibly St Mary’s Lighthouse just north of Whitley Bay. The girl sits on a rock smiling at the camera followed by her sitting on a grassy bank overlooking Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. She stands posing with St Bartholomew’s church at Newbiggin in the near distance. She sits on a seawall beside a bottle of milk eating a sandwich before looking into the camera from a rock near the shoreline. A British Gaumont News aeroplane is parked beside an airport hanger, a crowd stand around looking at it. Believed at High Wycombe a car pulls up outside a shop along a busy road, other vehicles pass while pedestrians walk along the pavement. A pub sign for the ‘Five Oaks’ and another sign attached to a wooden fence reads ‘Business as Usual’. A group of men work using pickaxes and sledgehammers to demolish the pub, only the walls of the lower floors remaining. A double-decker bus drives past, the men work together to leaver a wall over. A Grand Union Canal Carrying Co. Ltd barge comes under a bridge pulling a second vessel. It continues its journey along the canal passing a two women and a girl walking along the towpath. One of the women is push a small child in a pushchair. In a street women line up with buckets which are filled with water from a lorry. Inside a flower shop a film camera has been set up as two elegantly dressed women walk past Outside crowd gather around a large house or building. They applaud as a young girl in a white dress walks onto a small platform carrying a bouquet and curtseys, two men and a woman stand behind the girl. An older woman appears on the platform beside the girl, one of the men speaks with her. She makes a speech to the crowd and walks away. Behind the crowd two large cinema lights. The crowds begin to walk away and begin to look around a large exhibition. Everyone is well dressed with the men wearing top hats. People stop at various stalls looking at what is on display. The older women seen previous poses beside a man wearing a metal hat, sunglasses, and an apron. Writing above their heads reads ‘Home Movies & Home…’ A car comes along the driveway of country house, a woman waves from beside another vehicle. Views of a third car is followed by two women stand talking with each other beside another car. They get in. At night people walk past the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh which is showing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for the last week. Beside a lake or pond in a park two pelicans, one grooming itself. A man sketches a scene with a pencil and pad. At Trafalgar Square in London a policeman directs traffic coming along The Strand. Behind him a number of double-decker buses waits for their turn. Nearby South Africa House and two boys feeding pigeon in Trafalgar Square itself. Three young women also have fun feeding the birds. A policeman stands beside road works taking place outside the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Nearby a man reads a newspaper sitting on a set of steps, beside him items for sale. Phantom tram ridge along a busy London road, the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in the distance. Trams, buses, and other vehicles travel along Ludgate Hill, the entrance to St Paul’s in the near distance. An old woman comes down the steps of St Paul’s, nearby a man feeds the pigeons. A policeman walks along the road beside the cathedral as a horse-drawn-wagon passes in the opposite direction. A young woman sweeps the pavement next to a fruit and vegetable stall. Crowds walk past a number of other stalls in a market selling household items. A crowd gathers around one stall where the stallholder is speaking with the crowds selling them cut flowers from a box. Another stallholder sells linen, he tosses towels and similar into the crowd. A man with a stethoscope around his neck attempts to sell a health potion to a small crowd. Two young women stand either side of him as holds two glass vials in the air mixing the concoction for the crowds. Another salesman sells hair extensions, he stands talking as he twists and turns the head of a female mannequin resting on a tripod pulling at its ponytail. A queue forms beside a fruit and vegetable stall, the woman behind the counter filling paper bags with produce. Chickens are for sale in cages nearby, a young man fills a cardboard box with chicks. Puppies also in cages look up on people interested in purchasing them including a young woman. A policeman stands in the middle of a busy intersection directing traffic, the scene changes to a train pulling into a railway station. Another passenger train departs. In a tearoom a woman pours herself a drink while out on the platform a train waits to depart, the driver filling the tender with water. A steam train passes under a bridge at speed followed by another pulling into station. Two boys ride a horse-drawn milk wagon along a suburban road. Several buses and other vehicles pass through a busy intersection changes to show a horse-drawn United Dairies milk wagon slowly making its way along a suburban road of newly built houses. On a frozen pond or lake people are ice skating, nearby ducks, swans, and other wildfowl paddling in the water of a hole in the ice. A woman and a man skate gracefully in circles watched by a small crowd. They dance arm-in-arm. A game of ice hockey is played as the sun goes down. Newsreel footage of an airplane flying overhead and evacuee children making their way onto trains during World War Two. Nurses hand our drinks to those onboard before the train leaves the station. Those onboard wave some with white handkerchiefs. Amateur footage of an RAF aircraft flies overhead as various platoons of army, navy and RAF personnel parade along a Newcastle street past crowds and dignitaries on a raised platform. [Colour] A man sits in passenger seat of a car with a drink in his hand. A close up of a woman’s face, she is speaking. [B&W] A man plays with a dog in a garden changes to men in white lab coats working in a large office. A woman at a tea trolley a pour a mug of tea for a man in a lab coat. Nearby men work on a piece of equipment laid out of a table. At a snow-covered rail yard trains and wagons move around followed by a snow-covered suburban street. Inside a house a man sits reading a newspaper, a woman comes into the room and takes a seat beside him. A ¼” tape recorder in in operation followed by two men walking though a snow-covered rural location. General views of a suburban street with the road, cars and roofs covered in a blanket of snow. Pedestrians walk carefully along a road which has been cleared of snow, a lorry gets stuck reversing along a suburban street. A van drives past along a suburban road, the livery on the side reads ‘Armstrong Elliott Ltd’ of Newcastle. Another lorry reverses out of a driveway, a woman walks past pulling a sled. Cars, buses as well as pedestrians travel along a suburban road changes to a lorry with a snow plough attachment on the front clears another road. Two men dig out the lorry which has become stuck in the snow. In another part on the city diggers work to clear the roads of snow dumping it into the back of a lorry. A man digs his car out from the side of a busy road. Vehicles drive slowly along slushy roads; people walk along pavement with equal caution. Pedestrians and traffic travel past the entrance to Windsor and Eton railway station in Windsor. General views of the town and a policeman giving directions to a car driver. A member of the Queens Guard stands to attention outside the entrance to Windsor Castle. A platoon of soldier’s marches through a gateway into the castle itself, a man standing on a grass area appears to be taking a photograph. Several military vehicles are drive across a grass area pulling artillery pieces. Flags and bunding adorn the Newcastle Old Town Hall on St Nicholas Square, other streets around the city are equally decorated including Grey Street leading down onto The Side and outside the Theatre Royal. Two women sit at a kitchen table, a dog sitting beside them. The younger woman passes the older two items of stripped clothing, presumably coloured red, white and blue. The older woman goes upstairs and take out from a closet large Union Jack which she unfurls and hangs out from her bedroom window. She comes outside to admire it fluttering in the wind. A Girl Guide comes to the door of the house of the older woman. Working in her back garden she comes to the door and buys from a her a souvenir programme relating to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In the living room the two women dress a small boy in the stripped outfit seen previous. A third woman places a hat on the boy’s head with a Union Jack on it. He sits reading a comic while wearing a mask which covers the lower part of his face. Bunting hangs across a terraced street, a man on a ladder attached more to the entrance of a house. A man walks along the street, his jacket over his head protecting him from the pouring rain. Around a dinning room table children raise a toast to their new Queen with tea drunk from Coronation mugs. A woman pours more from a teapot. Bunting and flags adorn the Co-Operative Society department store on Newgate Street in Newcastle. Inside a factory unit men work to finalise a of decorative floats in the shape of a gallion, a man stands atop a rickety ladder to paint a pole. Now finished it is driven slowly outside, a flag attached to the front of the ship reads ‘Presented with the Loyal Compliments of the Newcastle Co-Operative Society Limited’. Women and children stand in the back alley of a terraced street, a Union Jack flying overhead. A group of children stands next to a decorative backyard gate relating to the coronation, working along the bottom reads ‘Long May She Reign’. A Pickfords lorry drives along the terraced street pulling a large earthmoving scraper. Standing atop of the said scraper a number of young girls wearing sashes who wave at the camera. Children gather around to look at the Co-Operative gallion parked close by. Nearby, a boy sits in a miniature horse-drawn carriage. A Scottish piper stands talking with the children as four small horses or ponies are brought over and attached to the carriage seen previously. A crowd of children gather around to watch. [Colour] Bunting and flags adorn the Newcastle Theatre Royal, Grey’s Monument, and the Co-Operative Society department store on Newgate Street. A large royal insignia also hangs above the entrance of the store. More bunting decorates the road near to St Thomas’s Church on St Mary’s Place, two women and a boy sit in the alcove of the statue of St George and the Dragon outside the church. A man leads a horse pulling a gypsy caravan along a busy road and the two women and boy are now seating on a different bench. Again, colourful bunting adorn the surrounding buildings. A Scottish pipe band leads a procession along Gallowgate past the Ordnance Arms pub and large crowds lining the street. Two horse-drawn state carriages follow behind after which come soldiers carrying flags, a man on a horse dressed as St George and the Co-Operative gallion. On board women pose in Tudor dress while men also in costumes walk beside the float. The crowds applaud as more costumed men and women walk past including soldiers dressed in 18th century Redcoats and men in 18th century naval uniforms. Another open top carriage rides past followed by a jeep pulling ‘The Elswick Gun’. More decorative floats including those from the Peoples Theatre and the local ‘Operatic & Dramatic Society’. Behind them comes the miniature horse drawn carriage from earlier followed by more floats including one for Vickers-Armstrong on Scotswood Road which features several male gymnasts performing a series of exercises. Another float contains a model of the Royal Yacht Britannia while a third has a rowing boat on it where several young women are seated. Ones on them wearing a hula skirt waves at the crowds. The film ends on a bus that drives along Gallowgate with a large crown attached to its roof.