https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060006220Great 1940 propaganda film, Britain at its lowest ebb and the foundation of the "we stood alone/blitz spirit" mythology but posted here for the drilling four minutes in.
And is that Jimmy Trotter front left in the V neck jumper
@Blitzwalker @SE7toSG3
Comments
Acting just like Chelsea to undermine the opposition.
Nice find BTW.
At 67 years of age I can recall some of the flavour of that film from my childhood (although not the war bit!).
England was a much simpler place, and although we have all gained a lot since then I feel that we have lost a lot more.
I can remember, in the early 60s, bunking in to The Valley to see a reserve or Athenian League game on a sunny afternoon and walking around the ground two or three times while watching it, just because you could. Apart from the blind bit behind the stand of course.
I think there's more propaganda daily on the news today than on that film.
Definition:
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.
Propaganda was not a dirty word back then, its possible to be a public information film at the same time as being sraight propaganda. The Ministry of Information was a direct development from the original Secret War Propaganda Agency that was formed in September 1914 by Charles Masterson. It involved literary figures and social influencer's of the day including Rudyard Kipling, John Buchan, Arnold Bennett and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Good to see the civil defence stretchers, I have always been fascinated with the stretcher fencing across SE London, they are a real surviving link to our past.
To me, its sobering to think that at the time people first watched this short film in the pictures, the outcome of victory was far from clear. That as Jimmy Trotter paraded across our Valley turf in a cricket jumper, the guarantee of freedom I take for granted was a distant hope, well its just quite incredible really.
You can watch it now, somewhat whimsically, nostalgically without questioning that we would victor over Nazi tyranny. Of course we are armed with hindsight and history lessons but then? How did they feel? To be fair the vast majority probably shrugged 'it is what it is' in a Boweresque style and cracked on with life.
It certainly makes me very proud some 80 years on.
The block of flats at the bottom of Erlanger Road, New Cross Gate has (had? - haven't looked for quite a few years) them, too.
Royal British Legion, 2020
No less propaganda than in 1940.