Saturday, January 19, 2013

The railways in the winter of 1963



Earlier this evening the BBC showed a fascinating documentary from 1963 about that year's exceptionally hard winter. Both Ridley Scott and Anthony Jay were credited part of the production team at the end.

The programme made me realise what a very different world I was born into - I was a toddler when all this was taking place. I also wonder if today, with our dependence on supermarkets and just-in-time distribution, we would cope better or worse with such a winter.

This short film shows how the railways coped in January and February 1963. According to the BFI it was nominated for an Oscar, and as for its director:
Since the 1950s, Geoffrey R Llewellyn Jones has been making multi-award-winning short films that look, sound and feel like nothing else. With his extraordinary marriage of images, music and rhythm, he ranks alongside such luminaries as Norman McLaren and Len Lye, and remains one of Britain’s true film artists.

No comments: