Category: West Midlands TV
Date: 25.05.2005
Printable version
Do you have an attic full of footage? Any old canisters
of film to flick through? Then 91Èȱ¬ Midlands Today wants
to bring its cameras into your loft.
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Passing Time with Carl Chinn is a
new feature on the region's favourite news programme which delves into
the dusty world of archive film (Thursdays from 2 June on Midlands Today,
6.30pm on 91Èȱ¬ ONE).
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Carl thinks it a tragedy that there is old film lying
around gathering dust in attics all over the Midlands - what makes him
despair is the thought that the film might end up in the bin.
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"It's astonishing what you can find out from old
films. How people lived, what they wore, what they ate. And I know that
a lot of it is never seen and just gets thrown away," he says.
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Passing Time with Carl Chinn concentrates on finding,
viewing and restoring a treasure trove of Midlands' life captured through
the lenses of professional and amateur cameramen from the past.
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The viewer who sent in the footage showing on Thursday
2 June says he found it in a 'tat' shop in Wallheath some 15 or 20 years
ago.
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The film casts new light on one of the big issues of
our time: our children's health and the obesity epidemic.
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The film from the Thirties shows boys and girls from
Oldbury in the Black Country going through physical exercises, gym work,
football and a sports day.
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When challenged, today's children found it hard to match
the performance of their forebears - possibly their own great-grandparents.
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The following week's film (Thursday 9 June) shows the
life of a Birmingham family who ran a photographic studio and acquired
a cine camera. The camera was used to record courtship, weddings and
births - how one hard-working family lived before and after the Second
World War.
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Also found, in a trunk in a house in Worcester, is unique
film that dates back even earlier: to just after the end of the First
World War.
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Like every other town and city in the Midlands, Worcester
suffered terribly in terms of men killed in the trenches. Many more
returned home shattered by war or with terrible injuries, even lost
limbs.
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But the film - taken less than four years after the
end of the Great War - shows a city recovering with an air of confidence,
looking forward to a brighter future.
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"It's a privilege to safeguard these memories for
future generations," says Carl. "And I hope people will tune
in to see the type of world their families lived in - the world that
shaped our lives today."
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If you think you have any old film that might interest
Carl, write to him at:
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91Èȱ¬ Midlands Today
The Mailbox
Birmingham
B1 1RF
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Midlands Today: weekdays at 6.30pm on 91Èȱ¬ ONE (West Midlands)
