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Writer's pictureWendy Percival

Reels of family history fun!

I crawled into the back of the loft the other day (no mean feat, I have to say!) and dug out the carrier bag of my late dad’s cine films. I want to get them digitised so all the family can view them. There are 17 four-inch spools, dating from 1961 to 1973.


For Dad’s 80th birthday some years ago, we rented a cottage in the beautiful village of Lacock in Wiltshire, pictured below ("our" cottage is in the right-hand photo), and arranged a family gathering, where we set up the old cine projector and watched the films.



There are only 4 minutes of footage on each spool but as it took longer than that to rewind the film after viewing and set up the next reel on the temperamental projector, it became a full evening’s entertainment! We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and I’m really looking forward to seeing them all again.


Most show family holidays in the many locations I see as I continue scanning my way through Dad’s 35mm slide collection. Still a few boxes left to do, though I'm making good progress.



This week on Twitter’s #AncestryHour everyone was encouraged to post old family holiday photographs under the hashtag #AncestryHourHolidayPhotos


I posted a picture of my parents on their honeymoon on Fistral Beach in Newquay in 1956 and another person posted one of their mother, also on Fistral beach, also on her honeymoon, taken two years earlier! Obviously Newquay was a popular spot for honeymooning in the 1950s.


My Mum & Dad, Fistral Beach, Newquay, Cornwall. August 1956

Once the films have been digitised, I'll post an extract or two, so watch this space!


Do you have old cine films amongst your family history archives? And have you digitised yours?

 


4 комментария


Wendy Percival
Wendy Percival
23 авг. 2019 г.

They do look a happy pair, don’t they Caroline? Seeing their honeymoon photos always brings a lump to my throat. Mum always used to bring out the album on their wedding anniversary and look through it with me and my sister. She saved the receipts and correspondence for hotels they stayed in, and stuck them in the album alongside the photos, as well as theatre programmes and even car park tickets!

Lovely for you to have those memories of sharing your mum‘s box of Egypt and Cyprus photos with her. Yes, you’re so right about hindsight - and your comment just reminded me. I did get my dad to record a few of his thoughts on a dictaphone once, some…

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Wendy Percival
Wendy Percival
23 авг. 2019 г.

Yes, we also ended up with loads of slides of landscapes, Helen, I have to say. But after much deliberation, we eventually decided to keep only the ones of people, unless we recognised the place and had a connection with it.

We’ve visited a few of America‘s National parks. They’re pretty impressive places!

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CarolineWilson
23 авг. 2019 г.

What a wonderful memory to have and for all the family to share.... I love the picture of your Mum & Dad on their honeymoon, happy days.

I've no cine films but I do have a huge box of photos of my parents holidays during WWII in Cyprus and in Egypt ( the latter being their home at the time). I've had great fun going through them when Mum was alive and listening to her relate the stories behind them....wish I'd recorded her voice! Hindsight is wonderful isn't it. Watching any programmes on Egypt (Bethany Hughes comes to mind) its been great to see the places from the photos in real time. Good luck with your digitisation.

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Helen Baggott
Helen Baggott
23 авг. 2019 г.

That's going to be a wonderful moment, when you see the films again. I don't have any – although Dad did take a lot of slides when on holiday with Mum in the USA. Over the years he amassed so many, mostly of America's National Parks (always on their itinerary) that it would take forever to copy them. I'm not sure Mum would remember the exact locations, but the scenery was always spectacular.

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