Screen Archive South East is a public sector moving image archive serving the South East of England. The archive's collections of magic lantern slides, films, videos and associated materials capture the many varied aspects of life, work and creativity from the early days of screen history to the present day and serve as a rich and invaluable historical resource.
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Joce and Gill at Home
Joseph Emberton's marvellous film captures the early years of daughters Jocelyn and Gill - with birthdays, Christmas and a trip to Blackpool
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Overview
Joseph Emberton's film starts by introducing his two daughters - Jocelyn and Gill. We see them celebrate several birthdays with family and friends, including other children. We see them learning to swim at an outdoor pool, with Nanny in attendance, followed by Christmas celebrations, where the children struggle with a giant cracker. The family are then seen admiring the newly built Blackpool Casino, designed by their father. The film ends with a wartime birthday party.
Joseph Emberton was a noted British architect, designing some of the defining modernist buildings of the 1930s. His designs included parts of London’s Olympia, Simpsons of Piccadilly and the rebuilding of Blackpool's Pleasure Beach - including the Grand National roller coaster, the Fun House and the Casino buildings which are seen in this film. The events captured in this compilation were edited together at a later date, with accomplished inter-titles added, and the footage spans the end of the 1930s to the first year of the war. Wartime restrictions and the consequent shortage of cine stock curtailed Joseph Emberton’s movie-making for the duration and he only resumed filming again in 1948.
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