Governor's Notebook

Rare images of Northern Ireland before the Troubles.

Pre-Troubles Northern Ireland is seen from an Establishment viewpoint - literally - in this amateur film by the province's then Governor, Lord Wakehurst. Re-packaged for BBC broadcast with his Etonian voiceover, in hindsight it feels partial and desperately complacent. Few of its original TV viewers could have suspected that the sleepy backwater Lord Wakehurst evokes would be facing near civil war a decade and a half later.

Some of the original films shot by Lord Wakehurst and edited by the BBC are also available on BFI Player.