The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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British Red Cross Society Youth at Nurses Camps, Longhoughton and Rothbury
A rich wartime Kodachrome record of young women training to be nurses with the British Red Cross in Northumberland.
From the collection of:
Overview
On the home front, plucky young novice nurses in ‘hospital blues’ train up in Northumberland for a World War Two role with the British Red Cross Society. With a straw bed and a tent, at camps in Longhoughton and the beautiful Coquetdale valley, the enthusiastic volunteers take time out from drills and medical training to paddle off Sugar Sands beach and play games in the grounds of a Red Cross hospital at Rothbury.
This rare actuality footage was recorded by a filmmaker with one of the earliest British cine clubs, the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association, formed by James Cameron in 1927. Filmed at two different locations in Northumberland in 1944 and 1945, the young women pictured probably responded to appeals for volunteers by the Joint War Organisation, a merger of the British Red Cross and St John’s Ambulance, who provided trained people to act as reserves to the medical services of the armed forces, and offered first aid and nursing to civilians and soldiers.
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