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ACA Goes Down River for Special Launching of Tynemouth Lifeboat

Downriver with a movie camera for a special launch of the Tynemouth lifeboat.

Amateur film 1947 9 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for North East Film Archive

Overview

A Newcastle cine club gang head downriver for a winter ride in the new Tynemouth lifeboat, the Tynesider. This amateur film also records the bustling post-war waterfront on the way from an Ouseburn boat yard in Newcastle’s East End to the RNLI station at the Gut, North Shields, sailing past the imposing Spillers Tyne Mill, Wallsend shipyards, Howdon Staith, Smiths Dock and an impressive Shields fishing fleet moored hull to hull at the Quay.

This film was produced by the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association, one of the earliest British cine clubs, which had its first meeting in 1927 when James Cameron (the club’s first president) gathered together a group of men and women (four of each) interested in making moving pictures. It was one of just five ACAs in Britain at the time, and still survives today. The Tynesider lifeboat operated between 1947 and 1979, so this special event probably took place for the cine club cameras soon after the first launch ceremony.