Courtesy of Scottish Screen Archive

From a collection of family films by Jack Mavor, the director of Mavor and Coulson mining machinery manufacturers. It is an example of an amateur film shot on 16mm in the 1930s. Amateur filmmaking before the Second World War was an expensive hobby, indulged in by those with a disposable income to hand. So in this film we have a reflection of the lifestyle of a rather affluent family, and it cannot be considered representational of the majority. It is interesting to contrast this with the film Sadness and Gladness (1928) where children of poor families could only hope to receive a summer holiday as beneficiaries of organised charity (such as the Necessitous Children's Holiday Camp Fund). Here we see a family holiday on the Isle of Arran, filmed by the patriarch.

Jack Mavor was the brother of the famous Scottish playwright O.H. Mavor (aka James Bridie). He appears in the film.

Kenneth Broom

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