Dockleaves and Nannygoats

Wilf Green's interesting take on the home movie genre features Maidstone's citizens laughing, chatting, posing furiously and sticking their tongues out - even outside the town’s CND office. Green cuts between streets and backyards - where we see folks posing with their flowers and garden sheds. Two men are seen inside a house - working in the kitchen or sorting through their LP collection before the film ends with some hilarious and rather risqué mock cinema adverts.

The Wilfred Green film collection dates from the 1960s to 1980s. Many of the films feature the Green family’s holidays to countries behind the then, Iron Curtain, including several visits to Poland, as well as trips to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Alongside these rather unconventional travel films, the collection also includes family visits, celebrations, holidays and outings in and around the Kent towns of Maidstone and Aylesbury. ‘Dockleaves and Nannygoats’ is a curious and curiously titled film, which shows Green’s playful, naturalistic style where participants, clearly self-conscious, are encouraged to have fun engaging with the camera.