Local Scenes and Family Pictures

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton collects, preserves, catalogues and provides public access to its collection of films and magic lantern slides. The collection charts the rise of screen culture in the region and the nation and captures many aspects of life, work and creativity in the South East from the late 19th century to the present day. It is available for research, screenings, creative re-use and commercial access.

Local Scenes and Family Pictures

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
1 Sep 1927
Silent
14m

Grandma and Grandad also join in the fun of this home movie - with beaches, swings & roundabouts and a medieval pageant led by Christopher Robin

This remarkable film from the late 1920s shows an entire family thoroughly enjoying themselves. Beginning with scenes at Dymchurch and Lancing we see the children and their parents cavort on the beach while Grandad, in his suit and Homberg, looks on. After visiting Chichester's livestock auctions we see the entire family playing on swings and roundabouts. Even Grandma goes down the slide. We then see an historical pageant in progress before visiting two dams in Wales.

This unique film also features Christopher Robin Milne, whose father, A A Milne, created the character, Winnie the Pooh - he is seen in the section of this film which shows the 1929 Pageant of Ashdown Forest. At this event characters dressed in medieval and 18th century costume enact various historical scenarios, including what appears to be a battle, to an appreciative audience. Christopher Robin, then still a small boy, leads a procession of younger players who are dressed as characters from the Winnie the Pooh books.

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From the collection

Ordinary and Extraordinary Lives

Home movies give us unique permission to step inside the lives of people who we've never met and never will.

Home movies are always acutely personal - in subject and perspective - and most were never intended for audiences beyond family and close friends. But even so, these private films share generously with the uninitiated stranger. Watching home movies transports us into other lives and other times, where the actions of people we never knew, in places we've never visited, resonate with our own memories. The home movies of the stars, the rich and the famous, the royals - see past the familiar faces and they're much like anyone's: intimate film portraits of loved people and places, colourful moving picture albums of experience and emotion. These simple point-and-shoot home movies seem to connect with the past in a profoundly authentic way - their images unfiltered by filmmaking technique and artifice.