This is a film made by Mexborough Technical College teacher George Spurr.  It features his family over several years, at Christmas, at home, and on holiday.  It particularly focuses on George’s parents house on Bolton Street, where he lived, and his nephew and two nieces who visited every Saturday. The children play in the back yard and out in the streets. Title – Christmas 1956 The film begins with George’s father getting coal from the back yard.  Then a boy gives a girl a piggy-back across...

This is a film made by Mexborough Technical College teacher George Spurr.  It features his family over several years, at Christmas, at home, and on holiday.  It particularly focuses on George’s parents house on Bolton Street, where he lived, and his nephew and two nieces who visited every Saturday. The children play in the back yard and out in the streets. Title – Christmas 1956 The film begins with George’s father getting coal from the back yard.  Then a boy gives a girl a piggy-back across a field with an outhouse behind them.  They are then walking down a street together and visiting a local shop before returning to their home in Conisborough on the Windmill Estate.  They then come out of the house with their mother and get into George's car. There is a short break before they are out in the street again with other children, this time playing in snow.  A girl comes out of the house with a smaller boy who has a rifle.  They join George’s parents who are stood in the doorway of their house with George's sister-in-law, niece and a friend. After the snow has cleared, another boy walks along a country road and is again in the streets outside the house with the girl playing with guns.  The boy and the two girls, George’s nephew David and his sister and cousin, get into George’s car, and then the two girls emerge from the house and run across to the local shop of ‘J. Finn’ and return home.  George’s mother poses in the house doorway.  In the back yard the two girls dance together in front of the coal bunker.  The boy and two girls walk along a country lane, jumping over puddles, and across a field, along Denaby Lane.  They scoop up some tadpoles from a pool of water, and continue their walk.  They go digging for something in a wooded area which they bring back with them in their jars.  They walk along another country road, pass some more allotments and the WRECK as it was known to the village of Old Denaby.  Mexborough Power Station and Denaby Pit are in the back ground .  The smaller girl gets a stone out of her zipped up boot as they make their way home.  The boy continues on his own, with a colliery in the background across a valley.  He collects a few sticks on his way and arrives back as George’s mother is cleaning the car. In the back yard the boy makes a bow out of one of the sticks, and one of the girls emerges from a home-made tent.  The girls pack up their tent, and the boy has a go with his bow and arrows.  They then pretend that the packed up tent is a raft which they row.  The boy has a sword fight with one of the girls using the sticks he has collected.  The two girls sit eating bread while the boy pretends to be a lion tamer with a whip.  They are joined by George’s mother and the boy in front of the outside toilet adjusting his belt.  He has another ‘S’ belt that he wraps around his jumper.  Indoors George’s father polishes a wooden box he has on top of the bookcase, and his wife puts away the china.   The film then switches to show the boy with two young men at the Tower of London, looking at the canons [see film 4873, school trip to Wembley May 1957].  There is a group of young men and older boys wandering around a coach park.  Back home two boys and two girls sit at a table where they write on cards. They are then playing outside, jumping up on the wall and the window sill, climbing up the lamp-post and having piggy backs.  Part is filmed going backwards and in slow motion. Intertitle – Christmas 1957 A boy and a girl stand next to a portable record player, singing along to the record.  George’s father does the washing up.  The boy and girl sit at a table reading and writing, watched over by George’s parents.  They then sit and watch television, with a flickering screen, and George himself, in glasses, comes into view.  The two children play games next to the Christmas tree.  Outside they play with guns around the family car, and indoors the boy plays a game of Escalado. The film switches to a fairground, Tickle Cock Fair on its popular annual visit to Conisborough.  Here they buy toffee apples and look around the rides and slot machines.  They continue looking around at the different rides, and a hot dog stall. The film switches again to a country village where the boy and two girls hold a cat.  The go for a ramble in Derbyshire, setting off from the Fox House, accompanied by a man, clambering over rocks and stop for a rest by a stream. Back home the smaller girl sits on the doorstep and then on a wall as the boy is filmed backwards jumping off the wall.  Indoors the boy counts some money, and George’s parents have dinner with two other women. The film switches again to all the family, holidaying in a chalet at the Humberston Fitties beach site at Cleethorpes.  They walk to the beach, with the boy, David Tyas, carrying a bat.  The children jump about in the sand, and then have a game of cricket.  They then take a ride on a miniature railway, some of the journey filmed on board in slow motion.  They wander around their holiday accommodation, with the family car parked outside (Reg. DEA 744), and then go on the boating lake, some filmed from on a boat.  This is followed by a game of putting.  Back on the beach they have a game of football.  A light airplane flies overhead and lands.  Two women and one of the girls make a sandcastle.  Back at the holiday accommodation tea is prepared.  A woman arrives, and George’s father goes off to fetch some water carrying a bucket and an urn, and the film comes to an end.