Holidaying on the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal

The Bristol-based Wright family, with members of the Trevor Davies family, spend a 2-week holiday messing about in boats. They cross over into Wales on the Severn car ferry one blustery morning, fuelled by marmalade sandwiches. They reach the calmer waters of the canal and enjoy hot summer days paddling canoes, sunbathing and scaling the Sugar Loaf mountain. Meals are often taken al fresco, and getting the washing done involves a co-operative canoeist.

This footage was filmed, as is often the case, by Dad - Philip John Wright, master printer, engineer and inventor, who ran the Bristol-based medical and scientific printers and publishers John Wright and Sons, etablished by his great-grandfather John Wright at Stonebridge House, Bristol. The premises were bombed in 1941, and the company then moved elsewhere in Bristol, later taking over Dorset Press of Dorchester. He started filming after leaving Clifton Grammar School in the 1930s and made a machine (partly from Meccano pieces) for stop-motion photography, taking images of flowers. Articles on his filming exploits appeared in Amateur Cine World Magazine, and he also made and exhibited model boats.