National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales preserves and celebrates the sound and moving image heritage of Wales, making it accessible to a wide range of users for enjoyment and learning. Its film collection reflects every aspect of the nation’s social, cultural and working life across the 20th century, giving a fascinating insight into Welsh filmmaking, both amateur and professional.
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Tiger Bay and The Rainbow Club - I
Tiger Bay in Cardiff's docks area: a successful, multi-cultural community, providing a variety of activities, but which is threatened by 'slum' clearance.
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Overview
This joyous celebration of multicultural Cardiff shows a thriving Tiger Bay community in the early 1960s. The vivid, colour footage, shot between 1960 and 1965, includes an uplifting series of weddings, a visit from local Labour MP James Callaghan, a giant Easter egg and poignant images of the 'slum' clearance which condemned the terraced streets and their social opportunities to death. Also featured are shots of HMS Tiger, sponsor, with Television Wales and West, of The Rainbow Club, established to encourage the children of the docks area to participate in the performing arts.
Malcolm Capener, Roath-based proprietor of the Welsh Travel Company, Bute Street, Cardiff, was Chair and Secretary of "South Wales Films", a film-making club for amateurs. He shot footage of Tiger Bay (part of Butetown), recording both the activities of The Rainbow Club and the varied range of cultural festivities and events that took place there over a period of years. Tiger Bay was renowned as an ethnically diverse area of the docks, home to people whose origins spanned the globe and who had established a successful, integrated society.
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