Stirling Ash

The famous Swan Hunter shipyards on the Tyne grease the slipway for another stirring launch in the prosperous 1950s.

Barnstaple's experimental concrete-hulled ship gets a visit from a jolly Italian admiral.

There’s breathtaking footage of the London’s docks at their bustling peak in this informative film celebrating the work of the Port Of London Authority.

Paul Rotha’s brilliant film of the building and launch of SS Orion from the shipyards of Barrow-in-Furness.

Two of the earliest surviving editions of the Topical Budget newsreel, released in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster.

The iconic Cunard White Star liner leaves the shipyard of her birth and ventures seawards for the first time.

An elaborate vision of Beverley, in Yorkshire's East Riding, from ancient times through to the 1930s.

New young recruits are seen here showing their colours at the height of the war, marching through the town of Beverley, preparing for the battles ahead.

A chance to judge the mood of a typical English town, four years into a deadlocked war, as we witness the bearing of service men and women marching through the streets of Chapeltown.

The Battle of Britain may be over but the war over the skies continues, and so the people of Beverly crowd the Market Square and dig deep to buy one of Britain’s greatest war assets.

A fascinating glimpse into the training of the Home Guard –learning how to hide from enemy invaders – showing that they were far from being the farcical shambles of Dad’s Army.

Lines of children laden with books deliver them to bespectacled gentlemen granted the right to select those to be sent to forces abroad, and those to be pulped for recycling.

The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.

Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.

Filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall discuss their documentary Scala!!!, revisiting the legendary and inspirational cinema venue and some of the most notorious films that screened there.

Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.

A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.

Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.