Born to Boats

The famous Swan Hunter shipyards on the Tyne grease the slipway for another stirring launch in the prosperous 1950s.

Barnstaple's experimental concrete-hulled ship gets a visit from a jolly Italian admiral.

There’s breathtaking footage of the London’s docks at their bustling peak in this informative film celebrating the work of the Port Of London Authority.

Paul Rotha’s brilliant film of the building and launch of SS Orion from the shipyards of Barrow-in-Furness.

Two of the earliest surviving editions of the Topical Budget newsreel, released in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster.

The iconic Cunard White Star liner leaves the shipyard of her birth and ventures seawards for the first time.

It's the first weekend of July 1901, and high society are on the Thames

Jolly boating weather as the hordes descend on Henley for the Regatta.

Don your straw boater and join Victorians at play as you potter down the river at Henley-on-Thames

Hunger marchers demonstrate and the London season opens: the contrast between rich and poor in 1930s Britain

Visit the 1974 Royal Regatta in this film from the Central Office of Information

From Lewes to York, Pathe Pictorial takes a whistlestop tour of the picturesque sights of England

The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.

Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.

Filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall discuss their documentary Scala!!!, revisiting the legendary and inspirational cinema venue and some of the most notorious films that screened there.

Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.

A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.

Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.