This is one of many films made by the Mercury Movie Makers Cine Club of Leeds, otherwise known as Group 16 (as they made 16mm films).  MMM made films as a collective, but many of those involved also made films in their own right – the YFA has separate collections from most of the members.  They would often take it in turns to direct the film, usually with Alan Sidi at the helm, but on this occasion it was Ken Leckenby.  Ken made many films of his own, including a series of films he titled Out...

This is one of many films made by the Mercury Movie Makers Cine Club of Leeds, otherwise known as Group 16 (as they made 16mm films).  MMM made films as a collective, but many of those involved also made films in their own right – the YFA has separate collections from most of the members.  They would often take it in turns to direct the film, usually with Alan Sidi at the helm, but on this occasion it was Ken Leckenby.  Ken made many films of his own, including a series of films he titled Out and About, which all had the form of bringing together film and information of local places and events – see the Context for Out and About (1974).

Ken Leckenby was credited as director as he had recently purchased a second hand editing suite off ITV for some £500, which allowed for film and sound editing together – something that they previously done using Alan Sidi’s pioneering Cine-Sync invention.   Ken, as an insurance salesman, had the advantage of being able to work in the daytime, and he did the editing for this film.   Of the other filmmakers credited: Ron Broadbent joined the group after the Keighley Cine Club folded, as did Keith Overend; Myer Gorwits, a Russian Jew, made many high quality films of his trips abroad; John Copp edited and directed A Vision Fulfilled (1982); whilst Reg White has become the cine club historian, and still maintains links with the club.  It isn’t known for sure who does the voiceover, but Reg White believes it may have been a local taxi driver called John who often added the commentary to their films.

Although MMM made very many semi-professional films, of a high standard, including documentaries, they didn’t normally make films to commissions, so this film is a rarity in that respect. They had made other films for Leeds City Council, and these were enough to persuade the Council to commission this film.  It offered them an opportunity to use all their various skills to produce a film that is indistinguishable from those made by commercial film companies.  It says a lot about their standing that, although only an ‘amateur’ cine group, an organisation as large as Leeds City Council would employ them to produce a full-scale promotional film such as this.  It is an ambitious effort that does full justice to Leeds Parks Department.   Reg White remembers that the film was shown, along with a couple of others, at Leeds Civic Playhouse to an audience including the top city councillors.

For more on Mercury Movie Makers see the Context for A Vision Fulfilled (1984).  MMM are still very much in operation, and have a special ‘Ken Leckenby Trophy’.

One interesting feature of the film, near the beginning, is the preparations for the International Year of Disabled Persons (though note that the flower arrangement in the film has ‘People’ instead).  1981 was the first year that this event took place.  As a result of this the UN adopted the World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons the following year.  This sought to promote “the full participation of persons with disabilities in social life and national development.”   Subsequently the International Decade of Disabled Persons ran from 1983 to 1993. There is now an International Day of People with Disability (on December 3).  This reformulation from “Disabled Persons” to “People with Disability” may sound like a quibble but marks an important shift in how people with disabilities are perceived: "people-first" terminology stresses having something, rather than being something, which is a much more all-encompassing, and potentially debilitating, label.

Much of the information that this kind of promotional film provides, and YFA has many other examples of city councils making similar films, can now be found online at council websites.   Certainly, the services that the Leeds Council provides are listed here.   However, despite the proclaimed policy of ‘transparency’, the actual structure of the Council is less apparent.  It seems that ‘departments’ no longer exist as such, and instead there are ‘service divisions’.  Obtaining a list of what these might be is not easy, but there is a Parks and Countryside Service.  Whether this covers all the things seen in this film is not clear: functions get placed under different headings as councils from time to time restructure themselves.  Nor is it clear how these might be affected by the cuts of around £55m for the year 2013/14 (on top of a similar amount for the previous financial year and £90m cuts for the year before that).

Most of the places featured in the film are still an important part of leisure activities in Leeds, such as Lotherton Hall.  Some, like Coronation House, have been extended, and this is now part of the impressive Tropical World that was built a few years later in 1984.  The Otley Chevin fell race had only been started in 1977, but it is still going strong and is now in its 36th year.  The nursery at Red Hall is also still fully functioning, playing an important role in the annual Leeds in Bloom.  It isn’t clear whether there are still any black swans on the canal gardens – the ‘canal’ is really a long narrow rectangular pond – though there were until quite recently.  But, as the late great Bert Jansch has it, “the black swan never ever wants to rest, never stops to say goodbye.”

References

BBC News: Budget confirms Leeds City Council cutting 400 jobs

Bert Jansch, black swan