Bassindale: VE Day Celebrations in Birmingham

Summary

VE Day celebrations in Birmingham, as well as family home movies and cycling events filmed by Tom Bassindale.

Year:

1945

Duration:

0:17:07

Film type:

Black & White / Silent

Genre:

Home Movie

Company:

Master format:

8mm

Description

We open with two girls with tricycles in a garden. A boy is also seen cleaning his bicycle and they all pose for the camera. Next we cut to an area of grassland and see a group of boys playing cowboys and Indians with guns and bows and arrows. After shots of the boy riding his bike on a lane and then standing eating we see the same boy walking away from the Tudor Dairy tea rooms at Henley in Arden carrying two ice creams. He stands holding them and then passes one to the cameraman. There are several shots of him eating his ice cream.

Next we cut to Stratford upon Avon, a solider in a New Zealand army uniform holds a cine camera with the weir and Holy Trinity Church visible behind. He is next seen walking with a woman and a pushchair containing a little boy. Further shots of Stratford follow including the High Street and Harvard House. We then cut to a garden where a baby is learning to crawl on a rug. A later sequence follows with the boy now attempting to walk using a fruit basket to prop himself up. We then see a boys PT demonstration in a park with vaulting and boys playing netball and a swimming gala in an outdoor pool. Next we return to Henley in Arden where a large group of cyclists from the Solihull Cycle Club are eating ice creams from the Tudor Dairy. The riders are then seen negotiating a ford in a lane.

The remainder of the reel shows events in Birmingham for VE Day. We see crowds gathering and flags on the Council House and Lewis’s department store. We then see a parade along Bull Street (with the Beehive pub visible behind) led by police on horseback, followed by a marching band and representatives of the British navy, army and air force followed by an American contingent including a platoon of black American women, old soldiers with flags, and representatives from the fire service as well as Red Cross nurses.


Credits

No credits specified


Notes