National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales preserves and celebrates the sound and moving image heritage of Wales, making it accessible to a wide range of users for enjoyment and learning. Its film collection reflects every aspect of the nation’s social, cultural and working life across the 20th century, giving a fascinating insight into Welsh filmmaking, both amateur and professional.
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Rhyl May Day Procession 1903
Rhyl's holiday season kicks off with a bang as residents and traders put their best foot forward for the May Day parade
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Overview
Dressed bicycles, bedecked wagons and bands draw large crowds to Rhyl seafront this fine May day and there is much relaxed milling around as one spectacle after another trundles by. The careful preparation of firemen's vehicles, traders' wagons (steam rising from one advertising 'Home Made Bread') and tableaux of costumed citizens reaps its reward on this day of enjoyable community celebration.
Rhyl's May Day festival was an annual event established in 1891 to celebrate the start of the holiday season, and Arthur Cheetham would have been keen to capture the 1903 occasion and to screen the film locally soon afterwards. Cheetham (1865-1937) was an entrepreneur, cinema proprietor and pioneer filmmaker - the first in Wales to film events for his own shows. 12 of his (at least) 47 films, shot mostly from 1898 to 1904, survive partly or wholly, including the oldest extant British short of a competitive football game (1898). From 1889 to at least 1919 Cheetham was based in Rhyl.
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