Archive shows how children of past once played
FROM RIDING a donkey on Filey beach to tucking into a Silver Jubilee tea in 1935, the experiences of children growing up in Hull last century have been captured by the Yorkshire Film Archive and are now being shown to audiences in the city.
A sell-out audience at the Maritime Museum yesterday turned back the clock back to 1900 – when young lads were captured piling on top of each other in a boisterous game called “pie and crust”, which would probably be considered downright dangerous today.
The screening also showed children being evacuated to Malton during the Second World War and the recollections of a solicitor’s daughter who recalled the “jolly” girls who became “like sisters” when they came to live in their large house in the town.
The footage also captured the day Davy Crockett rode into town in his coonskin in cap the 1950s – to deliver road safety training to children. Although the images of a youngster being shown to ride a bicycle show streets nearly free of cars, the film warns of the rising numbers of vehicles and the threats they pose.
Archivist Martin Watts, who runs the Hull on Film project, which “is all about finding all the films in the archive and showing them to the people of Hull”, provided the commentary. He said the films were “amazingly atmospheric”, and one of his favourites was one that mentioned midday rests.
He said: “The film is from 1930 and I was a child in the 1950s and 1960s and they were still having a midday rest then.
“I hated them, they were boring – but here they are doing it on film and I’d sort of forgotten about it.”
For the Hull audience, footage of Newland Homes where the orphaned children of seafarers grew up, and scenes in East Park were among those that resonated the most.
Trevor Clark said it had been great looking at the old films, adding: “I always remember going to Newland Homes for the Whit Monday Carnival and the parks, the fishing, the Splash Boat. I was born in 1950 and I still remember playing on the bomb sites.”
Retired teacher Sue Jenkinson recalled a story her mother told her about the 1941 Blitz and how she got on a bus and when she arrived in the city centre, the conductor grabbed the ticket machine and her hand “and ran down to the shelter below the bus station as the rubble followed them down the steps”.
She added: “Ferensway was completely demolished that night, Hammonds and all the big stores went, it was a massive raid.”
Tickets are still available for a screening of on March 10 at the Ferens Art Gallery. Visit www.hulltheatres. co.uk/events/trawlers-tug-boats.