BFI

Years before children's programming came of age, the Empire Marketing Board produced Spring on the Farm. Evelyn Spice's simply-structured educational short used a child's voice to narrate together a series of short activity-led scenes.

As the title suggests, the tone is of innocent exploration. The whole film works on a 'my first educational film' basis: lambs fall over, rabbits hide in hay, pigs crowd in a sty and children play on swings.

The EMB had turned to producing films for schools because the dominance of American distributors made it difficult to place its film in commercial cinemas. The success of Spice's venture led the Ministry of Agriculture to commission a sequel, Spring Comes to England, and enabled the EMB to play an influential role in a fast-growing market.

Several left-wing councils in the interwar years (notably those in Bermondsey and Glasgow) began to use film as a socialising tool for children. It was a development in which Spice's EMB colleague Marion Grierson was to play an important role, and that would eventually lead to the creation of the British Film Institute in 1933.

Scott Anthony

Click titles to see or read more