The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Whitsuntide in the Lakes
A wonderful film showing just how much fun could be had camping in the mid-1930s, with no concessions of dress or to specialised camping kit, and none to any campsite etiquette.
From the collection of:
Overview
For those who could afford a car, camping in the mid-1930s must have been tremendously exhilarating. Members of the Yorkshire District Association (YDA) of the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland, out in the wilds of Lake Windermere and various places in Yorkshire, visibly have a huge amount of fun β displaying typical middle class eccentricities of the time, with games and a fancy dress competition revealing much about the culture of the period.
The film is among several made by Frank Charman, a member of the Yorkshire District Association (YDA) part of the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland, originally formed in 1901. Nothing else is known of Frank, other than that he had a son, who donated the films to the Camping and Caravanning Club, and who also made camping films in the 1960s. The YDA had an annual βLadies weekendβ at Fulwith Mill during the 1930s, and here we have one of those. Later in 1938 they visited East Farm in Ulrome, on the East Yorkshire coast, where the first club site in Yorkshire was set up in that same year.
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