This film is part of Free

Twins' Seventh Birthday

The Steel twins and their friends act their tender age at this garden birthday celebration, but do the adults?

Home movie 1969 4 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales

Overview

No prizes for guessing whose beautifully iced cake is whose – the doll and doily is for Cherrie, and the book-shaped one for Jonathan. Presents follow, with a doll for her and toy cars for him. Roles, however, happily merge by the end, where after a spot of paddling in the inflatable pool and rope-skipping by the adults, Cherrie is driving the pedal car with as much gusto as any of the boys.

Bombs on the Wirral in 1940 forced the Crawfords to relocate to their holiday home in Llanarmon-yn-Iâl. William H Crawford was a keen amateur filmmaker who portrayed his family and Welsh community with affection, and his daughter, Joan Steel, carried on the filmmaking tradition with portraits of her own family from the 1960s to the 1990s - including twins Cherrie and Jonathan, here celebrating their birthday at home in Hughenden Valley, near High Wycombe.