The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Round and About
This lovely film gives a vivid portrait of Swallownest village in the winter of 1942, with fishing in icy rivers and children playing in the snow, apparently oblivious to the war.
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Overview
With wonderfully sensitive filming, local filmmaker Kenneth Raynor shows that not all was gloom during the dark days of the war. The film is notable for its aesthetic quality: Raynor being also a keen photographer. The Yorkshire village of Swallownest looks idyllic in a wintry landscape (probably February 1942), with children making the most of the snow. One wouldn’t know that just 8 miles west Sheffield had been heavily bombed on the nights of 12th/13th of December 1940.
Kenneth Raynor, who made about 18 films between 1940 and 1947, was trained as a chemist and employed in a steelworks in Sheffield during the war, being registered as a conscientious objector. Cine film was difficult to obtain during the war, but using just 8 mm film Raynor managed to capture the serene quality of village life – in both black and white and colour – amidst of the horrors of the time. Unlike other amateur filmmakers at this time, Raynor shows a country in war, but not at war.
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