16th January 2007
Thirsk & Northallerton – Your History Wanted!
Thirsk and Sowerby Civic Society held its first meeting of 2007 with a guest visit by Binny Baker from the Yorkshire Film Archive.
Over fifty members and visitors enjoyed watching archive films from around the county. The films shown included footage from the earliest days of film making with an entertaining game of leapfrog in the street in 1898 which had some members in the audience reminiscing about their own childhood. The audience also saw unique footage of a Romany Wedding during the 1930’s, when thousands gathered on the moors above Baildon to witness the ceremony. The whole selection was linked together by a ‘winter theme’; one film included a different view of ‘snow on the lines’ in the great winter of 1947, where men with shovels worked tirelessly to keep the lines open on the top of the North Yorkshire Moors.
All of these films are being preserved at the Yorkshire Film Archive, which now holds over 7,000 titles recording the moving image heritage of our region over the past one hundred years.
Sadly, although the scenes were from across the whole of Yorkshire, the Archive’s collection has very little footage from the Northallerton and Thirsk areas. The Yorkshire Film Archive would like to hear from anyone who has film, or videotape of the towns, villages and countryside of the Hambleton district, so please do try to help with this appeal by contacting the Yorkshire Film Archive – details are given below.
You can see a selection of footage from the Yorkshire Film Archive on your television screens by watching The Way We Were, every Thursday evening at 7.30pm on ITVYorkshire. For those with Tyne Tees TV, there is also a Tyne Tees version of the programme.
If you could help in finding local film footage, then please contact Binny Baker at www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com or telephone 01904 876550 for more information.
If you would like more details of the forthcoming programme for the Thirsk and Sowerby Civic Society then please visit our website on www.thirskcivicsociety.co.uk