It's 1959 and, says the blurb on the British Film Institute site, Beryl Reid is on at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham, a trolley bus passes the Palais de Danse and the Christmas tree is present and correct in Old Market Square.
Most intriguing of all are the Nottingham characters posing for the camera at the start of this amateur reel shot by local filmmaker F. Pole. A forgotten fragment of 1950s life preserved for posterity.
Click on the image above to view this film on the BFI site.
H'mm. The BFI say 1958 and 1959 in different places. Any way, no sign of Arthur Seaton -presumably grafting over a spindle lathe at the cycle factory. getting ready for Saturday night and a lie in on Sunday morning. But I wonder if the mum in the opening picture could be Brenda or Winnie, and whether the younger flirty one could be Doreen. The book was published in 1958 an' all.
ReplyDeleteOur filmmaker takes a walk around the city centre immediately after the opening street corner scenes, so perhaps the location would be at the top end of the Meadows? Arthur Seaton went there for a rowdy Christmas booze with family.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, parts of Radford and the Meadows were in Liberal Democrat council seats before The Fall.
Interesting stuff. The corner shop is reminiscent of the one that was on Salisbury Street, up the road from the Sillitoe/Seaton house (see one of the photos at http://www.ciaranbrown.com/snasmlocations.html). Nice views of the tree in the Square with very little other paraphernalia around. There always seem to me to be more old people around in these films. I wonder if the age demographic has actually changed substantially between then and now. The Portland Building looks more imposing than it does these days for some reason. I'd love it if the Central Market was still around to explore, even though it would probably be dying on its feet. All-in-all, I think I would feel very much at home in the Nottingham of that era. Even though so much has changed, I feel that the city has kept its character and spirit (I was born in 1966).
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