A Present from Whitby

A lovingly-made film by a dad of his wife and daughter enjoying the pleasures and traditional fishing of post-war Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay.

This is a beautifully made film by an unknown amateur filmmaker of his daughter in relaxed mood while on holiday in Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay in 1948. As well as the usual trip to the Abbey, a visit to a penny arcade and buying some Whitby jet, mother and daughter go fishing and watch the Whitby fishermen as they bring home their catch and prepare for their next voyage out.

This film was donated to the Yorkshire Film Archive by Robin Hood's Bay and Fylingdales Museum, together with another excellent film of Fylingdales from 1954-55. Unfortunately it isn’t known who made the films, but judging by the quality of the filming, editing and use of intertitles, it is probable that they were a keen amateur filmmaker. It isn’t known what the “OLCS” stands for, for which the film won an “Oscar”; possibly the Oldham Lyceum Cine Society which formed in 1945 as one of the numerous offshoots of the Oldham Lyceum, established in 1838 for “the moral and intellectual improvement of the inhabitants".