Me and My Two Friends

A beatific image of Victorian childhood

This heart-melting fragment, long impossible to show publicly due to its unusual format, gives us one of the most iconic images in early British film. Not only does it showcase the pin-sharp detail of William Kennedy Laurie Dickson's unique 68mm film. It also, in the barely four seconds that survive, seems to distil many of the modern stereotypes of Victorian Britain - pictorial, sentimental in its attitude to children and animals, and intensely patriotic.

The film appears to be related to the films shot by Dickson to mark the launch of the Worthing lifeboat, and may have been the concluding shot of a longer sequence featuring the girl and her companions. As it stands, it has the flavour of an advertisement - very much like the celebrated series marketing Pears' soap, which made a point of using fresh-faced young children.