Courtesy of a village resident we now present some
fascinating old films of the village in years gone by. No need to get your
projector out as we have converted them into a form that can be seen on your
computer. There are well over half a dozen films to come so well worth
waiting for!
We have followed the information given to us to deduce
which film is which. If you see someone standing in a crowd who was a baby
on the date that we give then we have obviously got the labels wrong, please
let us know. Second if you can identify any of the featured people - and
there are some wonderful old faces shown - again we'd love to be able to
label the person for future viewers. Please get in touch by email!
As well as showing on this page we are also arranging for the films to be added to the world web
archive which will store them forever! From there you can download copies to
study or keep. We will give you these links as soon as possible.
Each film requires a good deal of pre-processing before
uploading to the server which takes us time to complete, so we will add new
films as
quickly as we are able. The first uploads may be out of order but are simply
the ones that need the least processing. Please do bear with us while we complete this large
task.
In case you are not used to
using You Tube to view videos just click the play button under the item
that you want to look at. If you click the button second from the right
hand end of the player (the one that has a light square in the corner of
a dark square) the video will automatically enlarge to full screen which
makes it much easier to identify people! To get back to a small picture
before the end, or to chose another video to watch just click the 'Esc'
button on your keyboard. There is no charge to view anything but you may
have to watch a short advert before your wanted video starts. A bit like
ITV really!
As the maximum duration that we are allowed to upload
at one time is ten minutes the first film running to 12 minutes has had to
be split into two parts, one long, one short. It comes from July 1953 and
shows "A Day in the Life of the Women's Institute". In this film you can see many village houses as they were at the time as
well as how the village in general looked back then. There are shots of Haywards Heath railway station and the village bus on it's journey
into the village as well. It took
the same route as now but carried a No 30 in those days, it ran more
frequently too! Say what you may about what the ladies do during their
"typical weekly meeting", the whole thing shows many residents both young
and old and is of real historic interest. Old bus fans will know which model
Southdown were running from Haywards Heath station, via Lindfield through
the village at the time.
The next 9 minutes of film shows how the village
celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, on the 2nd of June in 1953.
Lots of dressing up and film of many older residents. If you can identify
the main people shown please get in touch.
Now a few village sports scenes. Just a couple of
minutes long but we see the children coming out of school the old fashioned
way - nowhere a mum to run them home in the car - they ran home on foot in
those days! Then it's swimming in the lake, tennis, cricket and stool ball,
all as played by the rather more active villagers in 1953. No wonder not one
person in all these films looks overweight! Finally a few pictures taken
around the church on a warm summer day.
Now we show a film of the 1954 fete at the old
Rectory. That is the garden of the Rectory that used to be on the South
Western corner of the village at Ludwell. That garden now contains three
houses and two bungalows!
The Horsted Fair May 25th., 1957. This is a long film,
running to over 20 minutes so we have had to split it into three parts. The
third part is in black and white arty piece showing the evening barbecue.
And the same event a few years later in 1960 as what
passes for a crowd in Horsted Keynes gather to watch the procession and
crowning of the village May Queen. What is this, dodgems, swings and a
roundabout, a real fun fair in the village? Yes we used to have a small one
on the recreation ground every year, and a small circus set up several times
too. The elephants and other animals (including a camel and a rather aged
lion) used to "manure" the football pitch. Your webmaster took on the job of
repairing the entire lightning damaged circus sound system in the one day
that they were here! We got it working at 4.55 just before the first show
started at 5 p.m. so the children could watch before going to bed at 7 p.m.
Those were the days in Horsted Keynes, when the entertainment came to us and
not the other way round. And it didn't cost a fortune to watch either so
everybody could join in the fun!
Ten years later but that's still nearly 40 years ago
we are in more modern times with a film showing events at the rather more
sedate Rectory garden fete in 1970.
UPLOAD OF THIS FILM DELAYED DUE TO A
TECHNICAL QUALITY ISSUE
In case you missed it elsewhere on our site here is a
short cinema film report of the then Queen's visit to Horsted Keynes in the
first months of the war. Please click the picture to view. Lots of contemporary pictures of the visit can be
found here.
Finally for now, we switch to the "new fangled" video
system to take a look at the village May Fair on the recreation ground
just 16 years ago in 1993. Yes watch the same maypole and sword dances while
you listen again to the same Jimmy Shand record that the school has used since before
the war! Take your partners...
Were you in the Junior Class at St. Giles 20
years ago? If so you may remember this film of a class trip on the
Bluebell. If you see yourself please let us know!
All these films as supplied to us were accompanied by
a score of professionally recorded music. Had we included this on the You
Tube upload it would
have resulted in the films being entirely removed for copyright infringement
and we feel they should be available on the internet for future generations
to see. In the future we will try to add some non-copyright music and sound
effects but until
then they will have to be viewed silently - which is of course how they were filmed!.
