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A Ride with Uncle Joe

Cockney kids learn road sense the fun way in an entertaining and surprising wartime safety film.

Documentary 1943 11 mins

Overview

A friendly truck-driver teaches kerb drill to the local kids in this enjoyable road safety film, set in the outskirts of London in 1943. Apart from the occasional glimpse of a uniformed serviceman, there's little evidence of the war, but there's plenty of period detail - including tin toy cars, no seatbelts, and children playing marbles in the street - to place the film firmly in a bygone age.

In marked contrast to public information films targeted at children in later decades - when no stranger, however familiar or friendly, was to be trusted - 'Uncle Joe' is portrayed as a benevolent figure. With many fathers and older brothers away on active service and mothers engaged in essential war work, it would have been entirely acceptable, even actively encouraged for a man known to the local community to take an interest in the safety of neighbourhood children. Chirpy truck-driver Joe is played by Fred Griffiths, a firefighter during WWII who was also a qualified London cabbie. This is likely to be one of his earliest appearances on film: he became a professional actor by chance after he appeared in Humphrey Jennings's acclaimed Fires Were Started (1943, also on BFI Player). This government film is a public record, preserved and presented by the BFI National Archive on behalf of The National Archives, home to more than 1,000 years of British history.

Director

Ken Annakin

Featuring

Fred Griffiths

Genres

Documentary and Government sponsored film

Country

United Kingdom

Language

English

Subjects

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