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
It Could Happen to You
It’s not often that cake making and cine projector repairs get mixed up, but this married couple have managed it, to great comic effect.
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Overview
A whimsical, cautionary, tale that looks as if it could well have been based on a real life incident for Eric Bolderson of Castleford. It’s the 1950s, and the days when amateur filmmakers would often do adaptations and repairs to their equipment themselves, and, one can imagine, in the kitchen. Most often men, one can also imagine this annoying their wives, who would probably enjoy a good laugh at their expense.
Eric Bolderson ran a bookies in Castleford, following his father, and was well known locally, especially for his sense of humour. This shows in many of the films he made in the 1950s and ‘60s, which he would show in a makeshift cinema in his small attic. Here he is aided by his wife Irene, and friend Stan Jones. Along with his pals in the local working men’s clubs, Eric was involved in raising money for charity, filming many, like the pram race in Castleford in 1962, and would show these in the local clubs and pubs. Eric worked mostly on his own although he was a member of Pontefract Cine Club. As well as being behind a cine camera, Eric also got to be in front of one when he played the part of the farmer in Ken Loach’s film Kes.
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