Kiwi Newspaper honours Centenary Celebrators Tipton Harrier’s Jack Holden with ‘hard man’ article.

"Jack Holden... Hard Man" - extract from The Gisborne Herald, NZ

A few weeks ago I was present at a Tipton Harriers event at Tipton Library and took some photographs of the people who attended and also of the sporting memorabilia on display in the library’s museum heritage section. Following this blog post, a chap called John Gillies from New Zealand who works for the newspaper The Gisborne Herald, contacted the MACE archive.

 John explained that his father, Iain Gillies, the paper’s former editor and now a part-time sports writer, wanted to use one of the photographs I had taken at the event for a weekly feature called Legends in their Lifetime.

Tipton Harrier Jack Holden. Photo taken by Lucie Kerley (c) of an illustration taken from a sports magazine c.1950

John went on to explain that “normally it focuses on a local sporting identity but this week – to coincide with the Commonwealth Games – it recalls his memories of the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland and, in particular, the performance of Jack Holden in winning the marathon, despite his having to run the latter part of the race barefoot and avoid a chasing Great Dane. While searching Google for pictures to go with the story, we found your site, and images of the Tipton Harriers display of sporting memorabilia at Tipton Library.” 

As you may already be aware, The Tipton Harriers are holding a Centenary Celebration event this coming Sunday, 10th October at the Tipton Harriers Academy.

As hopefully you’re all aware this is the Club’s Centenary year and on Sunday 10th October there will be celebrations at the Tipton Sports Academy.

“From 1pm to 5pm there will be a BBQ, Bouncy Castle, Face Painting, Tombola, Cake Stall and much more. This is open to everyone, members of the Harriers or not.

Update:Please be there in plenty of time to get the relays sorted.
At 3.30 there will be the 100mile relay on the track. This will be split into 10 teams doing 10x1mile each. Be great to have everyone involved in this, no matter how fast, slow, young or old it’s just about having some fun. Please talk to your team managers and get involved. We realise there is a West Mid YA XC League that day, but hopefully a mile (or even part of a mile!) will still be possible.

There’ll be displays of the history of the club including old film footage and at 5pm there’ll be an old members re-union in the Snug.

From 7.30pm onwards there’ll be a buffet followed by a disco in the Function Room. This will be free but please get tickets off Marg Cherrington or Carol Smith so the right number can be catered for.

Be great to see you all there. “

 The event will be an opportunitiy for Tipton Harriers both past and present to be reunited and reminisce.

As part of their search for old sporting memorabilia connected to the Tipton Harriers, they are calling out for people who may have filmed any events in Tipton or the surrounding area – or have footage relating to Tipton Harriers, to come forward with their old film collections and have the opportunity to have the films copied into an accessible format and preserved in the MACE archive, free of charge. 

Tipton Harriers Club Member Tony Phillips - a selection of whose cinefilm will be screened at Tipton Harriers Centenary event on Sunday 10th October 2010

Tony Phillips has been a Club member (of Tipton Harriers) for over 50 years and through that time has held many coaching and official positions within the Club. As a young man he competed to a high standard over all racing surfaces – road, track & cross country. He has also coached all abilities from club to international level. He has served on many bodies that have governed the sport through the years. 2010 sees this recognised with the Presidency of the English Cross Country Association. An avid follower of athletics he has brought us a significant benefit with his collection of cine material that we are now able to enjoy as a fitting archive to athletic life and competition in the 1960’s & 70’s. He lives in Wolverhampton with his wife Margaret.

Tipton Harriers will be a screening a selection archive film in conjunction with the Heritage Lottery Funded Full Circle project which has enabled the Harriers to digitise a film collection belonging to Tony Phillips,  and also gain access to some old ATV news footage of ‘Long Distance Runner’ – Ron Bentley which will be on display on Sunday. It will be an opportunity for members to look back at events that have made the Tipton Harriers the club they are today!

Tipton Harriers Ground

For more information on this event visit http://www.tiptonharriers.co.uk/site/

 or if you have any film or sporting memorabilia, please contact Tipton Harriers: Chris Holloway 01225 309 124 / tipton.harrier@yahoo.co.uk or Keith Atkins – 01902 674335  / katkins101@sky.com

Interested in The Black Country? MACE has just released it’s first DVD.

 

The half an hour long documentary (which includes another hour’s worth of bonus material) was made by ATV Today in 1969 and explores the changing industry and landscape of the region through the eyes of its people.

See here for more details: http://macearchive.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/1-discount-off-maces-first-dvd-release-if-ordered-by-31st-october/

Eastwood’s Springbank Primary School hopes to use archive film as teaching tool!

One of our first Full Circle deposits was the Fred Naylor Collection by Sharon Rowlands & John Naylor from Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. Following this we found out that at least two generations of the Naylor family had gone to Springbank Primary School, in Eastwood and that John Naylor now delivers their school meals.

Full Circle are keen to work with schools, to encourage the use of archive film as a visual resource, a teaching tool that can be used by schools to enable them to create a  link to the content of the footage found. In this case the fact that the Springbank school children would be able to see Eastwood as it was 50 years ago which is a fascinating concept!

After meeting with Julie Vaccari, Head Mistress of Springbank Primary School, we introduced the Full Circle project, and its aim to find locally produced home movies or film footage shot by members of the community in order to create a record of their everyday lives and then to preserve them in MACE’s collection, the regional film archive for the Midlands. Julie explained that she was very interested in being able to include the use of archive film as an aspect of the children’s learning, and felt that it could be used in numerous ways. For instance, Literacy and Arts lessons, using the footage as a way of inspiring the children to produce artwork or poetry, to Geography, History & Maths.

The children of Springbank Primary School have previously been visited by the Fire Brigade’s ‘Fire Risk Watch’ Team and coincidently Fred Naylor’s film collection includes footage of the old Fire Station as he used to be a Fireman himself.

We also had the opportunity to meet with Don Brown, an Eastwood local, who worked for the Fire Service alongside Fred Naylor. Don and his wife were good friends of the Naylor family.

Thirty or so years on Don has now written a book of poetry and frequently paints at his home in Eastwood.

Julie Vaccari believes they “could definitely make use of the footage, as film is a very powerful medium” and one that children are known to respond well too.

Let’s hope that changes in the curriculum dont affect the way that teachers can use creative teaching methods like this to truly get the best out of their pupils.

If you have any film/video or moving image material relating to the Midlands or Eastwood area, please get in touch with the Full Circle project.

Call Full Circle Senior Curator: Kay Ogilvie on 07919 896 518 or 01629 823 495 email: kay.ogilvie@tiscali.co.uk

Attention!! JCB employee digs up amateur film collection.

 

Les Humphries helps Full Circle's quest to preserve the Midlands Screen Heritage.

Another great addition to fuel Full Circle’s film search.

Les Humphries worked at JCB (see the JCB toy in the photograph) and was a keen amateur film maker.
He filmed many local events including the Uttoxeter Carnival and the Rocester Carnival  and football match, dating back to 1977. He also filmed
family outings to London, Torquay, Torquay railway station, Torquay beach and  Denbury Camp.
Whilst in the army, Les was based at Denbury Camp, near Newton Abbot  which was built on a former aerodrome. Building commenced in May 1939 and was  completed on the 15th August 1939. The first soldiers to be based there were members of  the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and they marched into the newly christened  Rawlinson Barracks and 19 days later war was declared.

For more information on the Full Circle project  or to find your nearest participating group please contact:

Curator: Lucie Kerley 

 email  lk99@le.ac.uk

call 0116 252 5931 / 07919 896505

Home Movies are just so fashionable right now!

MACE and Full Circle are delighted at the level of publicity and exposure The Great British Home Movie Roadshow series, currently being aired on BBC Two, is generating. It truly highlights just how important it is that we find these previously unseen amateur films, home movies and records of British life and ensure that they are preserved for future generations. The Home Movie Roadshow offers a fascinating insight into the important role that Moving Image Materials have played in our lives over the past century.

With funding from the Heritage Lottery the Full Circle project aims to work alongside Local History Societies & Community groups in both East & West Midlands and help them undertake searches for hidden film, tape or video that may be stowed away in their community. So far the project has gathered interest from a number of sources, such as the BBC, Derby QUAD, Dudley Archives & Rural Media, to name but a few,  and has attracted groups from as far a field as Mansel Lacy and Fownhope, Herefordshire in the West Midlands, all the way over to the East coast to places like Woodhall Spa and Mablethorpe, in Lincolnshire. The Full Circle project,  aims to seek out film relating to the screen heritage of the Midlands and  preserve this in order to make this film accessible to members of the community to enjoy for years to come.

Should you have any Midlands related film stowed away in your attic that you wish to discuss, please get in touch with Full Circle Senior Curator: Kay Ogilvie at kay.ogilvie@tiscali.co.uk or 01629 823495

The Media Archive for Central England, also known as MACE, is an independent limited company and registered charity. It is the public sector regional film and video archive for the East and West Midlands.  Based at the University of Leicester we are part of a network of public moving image archives that collectively preserve the UK’s moving image heritage. We are also an integral part of the network of public archives and record offices across the Midlands.

Our aims are to collect, document, preserve, and subsequently provide access to the moving image heritage of the East and West Midlands. In addition we provide an information service to help people who are looking for film as well advice on how to care for moving image materials outside the archive.

“For a 100 years the British have filmed their own lives on their own cameras. What four generations have shot shows a totally different story to all the official film. It’s buried treasure, lying unseen, forgotten in thousands of attics and top draws. A priceless archive that must be saved. This is a 100 years of Britain’s Home Movies.” Excerpt from the BBC Two Home Movie Roadshow.

If  you want to hear more about the program or you have missed an episode, you can catch up and watch online using the BBC iPlayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tc4qn

The next episode of the Home Movie Roadshow is on tomorrow, Friday, 20th August at  21:00 on BBC Two.

Episode 3

3/5. In Falmouth the team see a unique record of National Service in the 50s.

Peter Frost deposits Kniveton family 8mm film collection with Full Circle.

MACE’s HLF Full Circle project has uncovered yet another lot of  hidden gems, this time heralding from the Kniveton, Ashbourne community. This find will enable us to look back at the history of our  Midlands Screen Heritage even further.

Curator Kay Ogilvie had the pleasure of meeting with Peter Frost who has just deposited a huge collection of 8mm films dating back to 1935.

His Grandfather, Wilfred  Ratcliffe, was chauffeur to the Wright family of Kniveton. The vast collection includes footage of Meyall Hunt on Darley Moor, Kniveton Fete, Ashbourne Show, Derby County FC, Flagg point to point, Harvest scene – described as ‘good’ and Bradbourne.

The collection consists of over 70 reels and is sure to be of interest to local people.

For preservation purposes, MACE will make copies of any footage that is appropriate to the Midlands screen heritage. In order for the Full Circle project to have a lasting impact on local communities across the region, it is important that film like this is carefully collected, preserved and converted into a format that can be enjoyed by future generations for years to come. By collecting and showing films, the project aims to build interest in local history and develop a sense of belonging and pride of place in people throughout the Midlands.

Lucie Kerley

If you too have any film, tape or moving image footage relating to your local Midlands community, please contact:

Kay Ogilvie – Full Circle Senior Curator at kay.ogilvie@tiscali  | 07919 896518.co.uk

Additional information concerning the MACE Archive and their progress with the Full Circle search can be found at: www.macearchive.org