Beautiful Yorkshire

Sedate cars drive by the Stray at Harrogate, where stately ladies serenely walk, while a lonely woman in a glides by in a punt at Knaresborough.

This is a beautifully shot film by Lucy Fairbank, bringing her wonderful filmic eye to bear on some of Yorkshire’s delights in 1936. Harrogate looks elegant, Knaresborough looks serene and eerily quiet, Fountains Abbey looks ancient, Ripon looks idyllic and Brimham Rocks has rarely looked so desolate or beautiful. Only a uniformed squaddie entering a newsagent’s near an unusually quiet Ripon market points to the horrors to come.

This is one of many exceptional films made by school teacher Lucy (Louisa) Fairbank, who lived in Linthwaite. Lucy became interested in filming in the early 1930s when she joined the Huddersfield Cine Club. Two years before this film she filmed close up the newly elected Chancellor of Germany, Adolph Hitler, as he passed by at the 300 year anniversary of the Passion Play at Oberammergau. As well as travelogues, Lucy lovingly filmed the people and places of the Colne Valley before the war, the children she taught at Linthwaite Council Infant’s School, and local weddings.