Whitsuntide in the Lakes

For those who could afford a car, camping in the mid-1930s must have been tremendously exhilarating. Members of the Yorkshire District Association (YDA) of the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland, out in the wilds of Lake Windermere and various places in Yorkshire, visibly have a huge amount of fun – displaying typical middle class eccentricities of the time, with games and a fancy dress competition revealing much about the culture of the period.

The film is among several made by Frank Charman, a member of the Yorkshire District Association (YDA) part of the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland, originally formed in 1901. Nothing else is known of Frank, other than that he had a son, who donated the films to the Camping and Caravanning Club, and who also made camping films in the 1960s. The YDA had an annual ‘Ladies weekend’ at Fulwith Mill during the 1930s, and here we have one of those. Later in 1938 they visited East Farm in Ulrome, on the East Yorkshire coast, where the first club site in Yorkshire was set up in that same year.