Yesterday's Witness
Season 2
No season overview available.
The Battle of Cable Street
On 4 October 1936 a part of East London became a battlefield. Nothing like it had been seen before. It was the day when the British Fascists attempted to march through the Jewish East End. A quarter of a million Londoners mobilised to prevent them and as one of them says: 'From that day onwards Mosley never again ventured into the ghetto streets of East London.'
Levant Mine Disaster
On Monday, 20 October 1919, disaster hit the little villages of St Just and Pendeen, near Lands End. 31 men were lost in an accident which has been described as Cornwall's worst mining tragedy within living memory. Almost every household in the neighbourhood lost a relative. Shocked Cornishmen all over the world contributed money to help widows and orphans in the stricken villages.
The Cockney Invasion
Until a few years ago the peace and tranquillity of the Kentish countryside were shattered for six weeks every year by an invasion of thousands of Cockney families who came to harvest the hops. Between the wars it meant more than just a chance of a few weeks in the sun ... ' Life was hard. We used to come away hop-picking to get a few shillings to buy ourselves a pair of shoes and some clothes and all that.' In this film, made at Goudhurst during last year's hopping season, the last of the Londoners, local farmers, and villagers describe what the annual Cockney invasion used to mean to Kent.
The Last Voyage of the Garthpool
The Garthpool was the last of the British deep-sea windjammers. Forty years ago she set sail from Hull on what was to be her final voyage, for she was wrecked on the Cape Verde Islands on 11 November 1929. One of her crew was 23-year-old STAN HUGILL, an able seaman and shantyman - ' that's the man,' he explains, ' who sings the songs used when you're hauling the ropes or setting sail or manning the capstan ...' Hugill is one of the last genuine shantymen in the country, and in this film he talks -and sings - of the Garthpool's historic voyage.
The Burning of the Bombing School
On the night of 7 September 1936 three men - a university lecturer, a Baptist minister, and a schoolmaster-set fire to a training school for bomber crews being built by the Government on the Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales. The schoolmaster was D. J. WILLIAMS who died early this year. In this film, made last summer, he retells the story of their action, now a part of Welsh history. ' It was not an act of vandalism but a direct protest in the name of the whole Welsh Nation.'
A Remnant of a Feudal Society
'The rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate ' was how it used to be on the old country estates, and there are still a few people who remember what it was like. Minterne, in Dorset, the home of the Digby family since 1765, managed to uphold this tradition until the 1930s. With the aid of old film, and the memories of the Bailiff, the Carpenter, the Post-mistress, the Head Gardener, a Groom, a Housemaid, a Farm Hand, and a Woodman - as well as Her Ladyship and her son - we learn of a way of life that will never return.
The Cramlington Train Wreckers
Forty-four years ago, some miners went to prison for wrecking a train. There were many acts of sabotage during the General Strike, but this was one that came within inches of disaster. Most people saw it as an act of irresponsible lunacy, but the miners still think they were justified. As one of them says: ' ... we had to do something similar to what we did do, for to let the people see what we were getting. I would say we were slaves, we were getting starvation wages.'
Mission to Serbia
In July 1914 the opening shots of the First World War were fired when Austria bombarded the Serbian capital, Belgrade. In Britain, at the outset of the war, the services of trained medical women had been rejected by the War Office. But their skills did not go unmobilised. For a few women today their years with the Serbian Army are still vivid. In this film four of them - a doctor, a journalist, a welfare worker and a sanitary inspector - remember the struggle to care for the wounded in overcrowded hospitals; the typhus epidemic which swept the country; the great retreat across the Albanian mountains in winter, when one false step meant death.
Cast
No season cast available.
Videos
No season videos available.
Posters
No season posters available.