This film is part of Free

Bousfield Personal Film 2: Colour Scrapbook

An aptly named scrapbook film featuring a train spotter's view of King's Cross around 1937, river journeys and Home Guard training

Amateur film 1937 17 mins Silent

Overview

The carefully observed railway scenes in this filmic scrapbook take you back to King's Cross in the heyday of the steam age. Even if you've never considered yourself a train spotter, the close-up view of these magnificent beasts may have you reaching for a notepad and pen to jot down the numbers - and then comes the privileged view from inside the train cab.

Like a good scrapbook, this roughly hewn miscellany of home movies offers many of the diverse pleasures, pains, pastimes and peculiarities that life throws at you. From operating a cement mixer in a kilt, messing about on the river, building an air raid shelter, training with the Home Guard, and welcoming a new member of the family, it's a terrific document of tempestuous times.