Youth Hostel Holiday

Sing-a-longs, sheet sleeping bags and daily chores - an alternative take on the swinging ‘60s courtesy of the YHA.

It’s fun on a shoe string YHA-style! Daily chores and lights-out at 10 may not be to modern tastes but a budget-priced break in a lovely location has timeless appeal, as this cinemagazine from 1962 proves. Sharp-eyed fans of hostelling may spot the beachside hostel at Treyarnon Bay near Padstow, which survives to this day.

Youth Hostel Holiday was made on behalf of the Colonial Office as part of the cinemagazine series Looking at Britain. Intended for screening overseas - in this case primarily to African audiences - each 13 minute programme in the series focused on a different aspect of British life.