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In Which To Live

Where is our sense of civic pride? Brentwood Civic Society encourage its citizens to take an interest… illustrated with pen tops and sugar cubes as substitute model landmarks.

Sponsored film 1970 29 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for East Anglian Film Archive

Overview

With the aid of a model high street - dominoes substitue for a multi-storey, a pen top for St. Thomas' Church - Denis Neale illustrates the changes being made to Brentwood Town Centre, including a few eyesores. Produced for Brentwood Civic Society, to encourage a sense of civic pride amongst its citizens, the film shows many traditional independent stores and some of the bigger chain supermarkets to argue its point, incidentally highlighting the retail culture of 1970.

Made and narrated by Denis Neale for the Brentwood Civic Trust, whilst working at Ilford Ltd. Sadly, the sound quality is poor, with the commentary at times inaudible. Shot on Super 8 colour film, the sound would have been recorded by microphone and added later. Denis was Engineering Manager at Ilford Ltd's Research Laboratory in Brentwood, Essex. He was a brilliantly inventive engineer and held a very large number of patents relating to electronic and photographic matters. In addition to the many commissioned films he produced, including those for Brentwood Civic Society, he also made many home movies.