In this month’s Bygones article, MACE focuses on Matlock’s annual Boxing Day Charity Raft Race, which celebrated its 50th race last December.
The Raft Race was started in 1963 by the Derbyshire Association of Sub-Aqua Clubs to raise funds for the RNLI. The four mile race on the River Derwent begins at Cawdor Quarry in Matlock and finishes at Cromford Meadows.
On the 27th December 1968 ITV’s regional news bulletin, Midlands News, broadcast pictures of the sixth raft race which had taken place the day before.
The Midlands News feature entitled [Midlands News: 27.12.1968: Annual raft race on River Derwent, Matlock] can be viewed below and is also available on the Derby Telegraph Website.
In the film we see around fifty people scrambling down the side of an embankment (which we believe to Cawdor Quarry in Matlock) with many different rafts of all shapes and sizes. Some of the rafters are in fancy dress ranging from bunny ears and chauffeur hats to Viking horns and beards, all competing in this four mile race to reach the finish line.
You can read more about the feature in today’s Derby Telegraph.
We hope you enjoy it!
Copyright Notice:
Any unauthorised reproduction, copying, editing, transformation, exhibition, exchanging, hiring, lending, public performance, radio or TV broadcasting or web use of this material is strictly prohibited.
If you would like to purchase a DVD or MPEG4 copy of this material for home viewing only or not for profit exhibition please contact Emma Morley at sales@macearchive.org
Extracts of this material is licensed commercially through ITN Source. Visit itnsource.com for contact details.
Welcome to the Blog of the Media Archive for Central England 
Reblogged this on keithbracey and commented:
Magnificent MACE at the University of Lincoln……should have been housed in the new Library of Birmingham,which I tried to make happen when I worked at Locate in Birmingham, the city’s former inward investment and international investment promotion agency at Birmingham City Council