British Transport Films Collection

The people of the Highlands live in small communities set in landscapes of unsurpassed beauty. This film shows some of the aspects of their life today, linking present developments in industry, agriculture and transport with the country's dramatic past - well symbolised by the striking interior of Glamis Castle. Two distinguished Scots, Moray McLaren (commentary and Cedric Thorp Davie (music) have contributed to this film.

In the course of the journey, linked through commentary with the rich and evocative literature of the West, we see the Devon of the children's holiday and the multi-coloured pattern of the Devon countryside, the rivers, the moors, the old historic buildings of Totnes and Dartmouth and Exeter, the tiny ports of the merchant-adventurers, and the great naval docks of Devonport. Across the Tamar, Cornwall also provides long sandy beaches. It has its Arthurian legends and its little fishing ports with their warm and mysterious names.

That area of England which is most English - gentle hills, shut-in valleys, picturesque villages, historic towns - these make up the Cotswold countryside, the heart of England. The delicate changes the seasons bring to this are seen first in early spring, with the harrowing of the rich fields, the first buds on the trees, the blossoming orchards. Later come the Three Counties Show at Hereford, cricket at Cheltenham or on the village green, and finally the harvest and the traditional fairs. Here are the little towns with the great stone churches, rich in English history, and Tewkesbury, and Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon

From The Wash right round to Southwold in Suffolk runs a coastline ideal for the children's seaside pleasure and the skill of the offshore fisherman. The open country of Norfolk is a delight to the gardener and the naturalist, while south Suffolk has that intimate lushness which Constable made famous. In both counties, the churches and the old history-soaked houses are among the finest in the country; and then there are the Broads, the home of sails and windmills and quiet waterways

A wonderful short film about travelling around Britain by bicycle - with the help of the odd train. An excursion train equipped with cycle vans takes a party of cyclists and their machines from Willesden and Watford to Rugby, where they split up into separate parties and tour the countryside of Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. They visit, among other places, Kenilworth Castle, a country pub, the church at Stanford on Avon and the site of the Battle of Naseby, before returning home by train in the evening. Probably one of the first films to make reference to the cycling ‘bonk’, when a rider doesn’t take on enough food, this short film produced by British Transport Films provides a comprehensive guide to bicycle touring around Britain. The Cyclists' Touring Club featured here would go on to appear in a sequel of sorts to this film, Cyclists Abroad, which can also be viewed on BFI Player.

A party of schoolchildren visit London to spend three crowded days in the capital. The adventure starts with a railway journey, and once in London new impressions are collected thick and fast - the streets, the parks, the museums, the shops, the hotel which becomes their temporary home, the Changing of the Guard, St. Paul's, the Tower of London - and, at night, the crowded pavements and the bright lights. There is time to visit London Airport and Windsor Castle and to travel by river launch to Greenwich and the Pool.

No film can present a complete picture of any one of the English counties, and Northumberland in particular offers such a variety of scenery and of history, such a rich fullness of life to its residents and to its visitors that choice of subject matter is more than usually difficult. In making Any Man's Kingdom the producers have attempted to include aspects of the county which not only illustrate this variety, but which may also conjure up something of the heart warming Northumbrian atmosphere.

In a series of vivid sequences, this film catches all the atmosphere of a traditional holiday by the sea, together with the zest and good humour of ordinary people released from their everyday routine. The action moves at a rhythmic pace to the accompaniment of traditional jazz tunes played by Chris Barber and his band, and the rich variety of candid camera shots captures the behaviour and reactions of people having fun on holiday.

A.L. Rowse, the eminent historian has written, 'The Elizabethan Age is not something dead and apart from us... Wherever one goes in England there are visible memorials of what thise men and women were when they were alive, the houses they built and loved and lived in, the things they made and wore, the objects they cherished, the patterns they imposed upon the very landscapes.' Some of the visible traces as well as something of the spirit of that England of Elizabeth, of Drake and Raleigh and of Shakespeare, are recorded in this film. 'Such stuff as dreams are made of, outlasting the years'. The camera conjures up Tudor England.

The Firth of Clyde is a wonderful place for a holiday. This film sets out to capture the delights, as seen through the eyes of Bernard Braden who, with his customary Canada dry humour, tells of his pursuit of an ancestor in the land of his parents. Furnished with a Runabout Ticket, he travels around by train and steamer. Finally, he comes to Arran, and finds the 'Scotland in miniature' whence his grandmother sailed for the New World

Donald Houston posts a letter on the night mail train from Paddington and recalls boyhood memories of Wales. An imaginative production involving colour and black and white photography, and inspired score based on Welsh folk tunes by Barry composer Grace Williams.

A sketch of the emotional quality of life in a great city. The Glasgwegian is the product of historical tensions; this film traces his development from the inhabitant of a Clydeside hamlet to the beneficiary and victim of a unique industrialisation