Unseen for years due to the fragility of the materials, ‘Springtime in an English Village’ offers an extraordinary and unexpected snapshot of rural life in wartime. After a fairly predictable opening – farmers ploughing fields, cute baby animals gambolling – it finally gets down to business. The film is about that most ancient of English traditions: the selection and crowning of the Queen of the May. But what is so surprising is that 60 years ago the village of Stanion in Northamptonshire chose to honour a young black girl – apparently the daughter of an African merchant seaman who had been evacuated there during the War. It’s hard to know quite how literally to take the proceedings. The film was made by the Colonial Film Unit for the purpose of screening throughout Britain’s African and Caribbean colonies – to demonstrate ‘typical’ life in the UK – at a time when the government needed to recruit the support of men and women from across the Empire. Later, in the immediate post-War period, such films not only acted to reinforce imperial solidarity, but formed part of a propaganda campaign to attract cheap labour to the UK. (Robin Baker, with thanks to Tom Rice for additional research) All titles on the BFI Films channel are preserved in the vast collections of the BFI National Archive. To find out more about the Archive visit www.bfi.org.uk
I love the video. But I really don’t understand people saying racism didn’t exist back then. It was 1944, around the time WWII ended. How could no one be aware of the atrocious acts and purpose of the War? Rather this video was made to show how racism should be overcome.
sheene71: please take your blatant racism elsewhere. you’re not wanted here.
be all blacks and one white person now sad state of affairs
Good thing there’s a lengthy explanation as to what the kids were doing. Otherwise, I would not have had a clue. Interesting film but one gets the feeling that the kids were on their best behavior.
What?
of course it wasn’t but this was can’t we remember the living and not always the dead?
A bygone age of decency and civility.
…And 10 million people were dying every year in a World War. Those were the days.
These kida are more behaved because cameras were more important, because society was less laissez faire about rudeness in public. Social pressure created slight naivity and public politeness. We are the way we are because we are free to be honest and self promoting (or not). You do not see the rudeness and knife gangs of 1944 because there is no documentary on it, not because it didn’t exist.
thats funny cause my great grandad used to say you gotta be hard as darkies feet to survive in this world.. do black people consider that racist or did i take it out of context? maby he was talking about poverty idk
Villages are great!
Beautiful : ) I am mixed race and grew up in a white village in Norfolk.
I need to know what the music is for this!? I need to get my hand on it.
Anyone have any ideas?
Not always. My Pa was evacuated to Canada in WW2. Soon after his school in Petworth W Sussex was bombed by some German plane seemingly on its way home from a raid, killing 40 children.
Some time later the Vicar in the next town was shot up and killed driving his car down the High Street. All the fields S of the Rother river all the way up the S Downs were covered in barbed wire and tank traps waiting for the Germans. The countryside was not always peaceful!