The Torch Triumphant (part 2)
16mm film Black & White Silent 1940 6:25
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Summary: Part 2 (of 2) of an amateur film record of efforts made to overcome wartime conditions.
Title number: 495
LSA ID: LSA/650
Description: The film begins in Autumn 1940 - a family leave their house and carry bedding to a garden bomb shelter. Air Raid wardens watch the skies and set an alert. Models of German aircraft and cutouts of a city skyline are used to illustrate a Luftwaffe bombing raid. Scenes of bomb damage to homes, factories, churches and schools. A schoolroom for infants - sand play, letter games, balls, camp beds, washing hands, brushing teeth. Older boys engage in debate inside a classroom. A gramophone record is played and children dance in a school playground. Scenes from a school performance of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer's Nights Dream'. Boys engage in intense bouts of boxing, with some rounds featuring a number of blindfolded participants! dancing. artworks drawn on boards over broken windows, callisthenics, boys making model aeroplanes out of wood and paper. Girls in a woodwork class. Cooking lessons, making pastry. Radio - schools programme listened to in assembly. Children practicing putting out fires and first aid (tying head and foot bandages, placing wounded on a stretcher). Children using stencils to create their own wartime propaganda posters: 'Keep These Shadows Off Our Meadows; By War Savings' (with silhouetted German bombers), 'Save for Hitler's Grave' (with a swastikaed tombstone), 'More Guns - Less Huns; Save for Victory' (with Ak Ak guns firing into the sky), 'Lend Your Money To Catch The Bunny' (featuring a rabbit with a Hitler fringe and moustache), 'Lend to Spend With a Friend' (featuring the Union flag and the Stars and Stripes flag over artillery, presumably about buying weapons from the Americans) and 'Victory If You Lend'. Schoolgirls knitting woollen hats and socks in a classroom 'for the forces'. Children packing up and leaving their desks when an air raid siren sounds and retreating to the school bomb shelter. Children walking home from school through bombed streets. The film ends with shots of a propaganda poster showing children huddled together and the slogan 'MOTHERS Send them out of London'
Credits: Conception: L.G. Watson; Production: L.G. Watson
Further information: Film from West Ham Country Borough Education Department. The school featured in the latter scenes is the New City Road School in Plaistow.
Keywords: Second World War (1939-1945)
Locations: United Kingdom; England; London; Newham; West Ham
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