Past Events

Part of our “Seventy Years of British Documentaries to Celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee” film series A 1954 British Transport Film that follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley along the East Coast Main Line. Although originally intended as an advertising short, it now acts as a nostalgic record of the halcyon years of steam on British Railways.      

Part of our “Seventy Years of British Documentaries to Celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee” film series An educational short subject dissecting the imbalances in pay between men and women in the early 1950s and showing the dilemma faced by women workers – teachers, nurses, artists, politicians, and factory workers. Made by Jean Cragie pioneer feminist and wife of Michael Foot.

Part of our “Seventy Years of British Documentaries to Celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee” film series When workers had to work until Saturday lunchtime only the afternoon was free time. See how the New Elizabethans spent the hours between 1 p.m. and Midnight in this entertaining short film narrated by Sir Ralph Richardson no less. For railway enthusiasts, this features footage on the Watlington branch at Aston Rowant.

Part of our “Seventy Years of British Documentaries to Celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee” film series Narrated by Richard Burton – who gave his time for free, this film shows children at the Margate School for the Deaf learning to lip read and apart from this narration and some music is, appropriately, completely silent and concentrates on the faces of the boys and girls. This film won an Oscar in 1954 for Best Documentary Film. Bring your hankies!

Part of our “Seventy Years of British Documentaries to Celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee” film series Watch as Miss Arty (played by Joyce Grenfell) and Miss Design (!) argue over what newly married couples should have in their living room and on their bedside table. Really. Supported by a short film about Terence Conran, and the height of his Habitat fame! Which would you choose – a teapot that looks like a cat or one that doesn’t fall over?

Brilliantly made documentary featuring a day at a typical Secondary Modern School in 1962. Sparkling dialogue and as captivating today as it was when it was first made. Teenagers are the same all over and take away their mobile phones and today’s secondary school pupils would be just like this lot. We have shown this film before but we’ve been asked to show it again. Made by celebrated Director John Krish.

Two films to encourage traveling by train to the seaside – in this case, Southend and Blackpool – which was about as glamorous holiday location as you could get in those days. Jellied eels, sandcastles, and music hall. Rescheduled from May 11th.

BBC film interviewing West Indian immigrants in Birmingham about their experiences since they arrived. Remarkable.  “We call England ‘the Mother Country’. We have been taught that it is the Mother Country, it has been drilled into us as the Mother Country, from the cradle, really, to the grave, because... Jamaica has been governed by the English for over three hundred years, and so everything about it is English.”

The transport of goods has never been such a topical subject what with Brexit and ‘supply chains’, anyway in the 1950s British Transport Films did its best to show that clanking, smoking steam locomotives were an efficient way of getting goods from A to B. Good luck with that.