At Wessex Film and Sound Archive you can see and hear history, from late Victorian times to the present day, through moving images and sound recordings. The Archive contains over 36,000 film and sound recordings relating to Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, including film and tapes of local TV and radio.
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Home Guard and home-movies in Swanmore
Conflict seems far away in this film featuring the Green family of Swanmore - but amid the jollity there's a sequence showing the Home Guard training with guns and incendiaries.
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Overview
This home-movie starts with jolly scenes around the family swimming pool - in summer and winter. A young man in naval uniform is seen, reminding us that there's a war on. We see the local Home Guard drilling and training with rifles and incendiary weapons. This is followed by post-war holiday scenes in Devon and Bournemouth followed by a wedding and a hunt. We end with more domestic scenes including a pair of teenagers larking about and swimming in the pool.
The paddle steamer featured in this film is the PS Monarch which was built in 1888 by R & H Green of Blackwall. She worked mainly on excursions from Bournemouth and Weymouth, sometimes crossing the Channel to Cherbourg and Alderney. From 1901 she was relegated to excursions from Bournemouth to Swanage, departing from Bournemouth pier as can be seen in this film. The PS Monarch was withdrawn from service in 1950 and broken up shortly afterwards.
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