London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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Home Guard, Hounslow
Detailed and absorbing look at the training of a battalion of the Home Guard in Middlesex captured by a local amateur film-maker.
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Overview
After a scene-setting introduction drawn from newsreel, this film uses amateur footage shot by Oliver Kimber, a printer, showing training with 2nd Battalion Middlesex Home Guard in Hounslow. The recruits are shown marching, bayonet fighting, wearing gas masks, on manoeuvres, firing mortars and dramatically engaging in mock street-fighting as they get to grip with life in the army. The Home Guard was formed in 1940 as a defence force featuring volunteer soldiers.
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