Re: Query: Films on Interwar Britain
Sharon Michalove, Editor, H-Albion (mlove@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 19 Apr 1995 07:14:29 -0600
Most of the responses to this query have concentrated on film dramas,
but you may be interested in some contemporary documentaries. I use
two in a course on the history of British social policy. The first
is called `Housing Problems' and was made in 1935. Channel 4 TV
showed it a few years ago during a series on homelessness. The second
is called `Children at School' (1937). As the title suggests, it deals
with the problems and possibilities inherent in the public education
system at the end of the 1930s. In view of current developments in
British education, it is interesting to note that in 1937 British
teachers thought that `no classes over 30' was a reasonable ambition.
Both films were produced by the British Gas Light & Coke Company, and
I obtained my copy of the second film from Tim Boon at the Science
Museum in London.
I also use a BBC film, made in 1972, which recreates a day in the life
of the London Hospital fifty years earlier. I find that I like it less
each time I show it, but the students like it, and they only have to
see it once.
I hope this might help.
Bernard Harris, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University
of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.