Last updated 20:36, Thursday, 30 October 2008

THERE they lay in a basket in the antique shop, a motley collection of old, some of them very old, photographs.

As I fingered through them I was suddenly assailed by a feeling of great sadness as the greying figures seemingly eyed me.

All life was there: newly married couples posing on church steps; young men all formal in their best suits, standing behind imposing pieces of studio furniture; uniformed soldiers, some of them so young, most of them bound for the trenches; elderly patriarchs, all collar and whiskers; formidable matriarchs, all fake pearls and enormous hats... the list is endless.

And there they were, abandoned, unloved, forgotten and anonymous. So sad! The hopes and dreams of generations reduced to a basket of anonymous fading images.

So how did they get there? Picked up on the cheap as part of a job lot at auction? Junked in with everything else picked up at house clearances? Who knows?

If the photos had been left in their albums, some of them would have been identifiable. Some were, most weren’t.

But at least they have been preserved. All too often, when someone dies, a distant relative will appear and dump old photo albums and other documents in the bin; one thing is for certain, you can destroy unique records only once and they’re gone forever.

So if you’re lumbered with albums or collections of old photos and you want to get rid of them, why not go along to your local library or museum to see if they might be interested in them? They might, and they might not, but then what have you got to lose?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a home video worth? It’s something we never used to think about. And all too often, home produced films and videos never get preserved anywhere.

For example, Miss K Sutton, county organiser of Girl’s Physical Education, made a film in 1956 of “movement and PE in Cumberland”. Made in colour, it featured sequences in Maryport schools. It was shown that year in the Hall of Camp Road School.

So does it still exist? And where? Is it still viewable? Never mind the history of PE, just how many of Maryport’s over-50s would like to see themselves at their athletic best?

And what about those children who got to visit the Farne Islands nature reservation that year? The visit was filmed by a Mr Norman, who also filmed “Cumberland through the Seasons”. Both were shown with K Sutton’s film.

From the piece in the West Cumberland News, it appears that quite a number of such films were made and shown at that time. So where are they now?

Football next! According to the WCT, Graves Brothers organised the filming of the Workington v Preston North End cup-tie back in January 1934. The film was then to be shown in the Workington Oxford Theatre during the following week. So does it still exist?

Risehow played Glasson in the second round of the Rugby League Cup back in October 1948. The match was, weather permitting, to be filmed, at least in part, and shown on British cinema screens. Did it happen? Which film company did the filming?

And which film company was hard at work at Risehow Colliery, at the same time, recording the “social organisation activities” of that pit – including their male voice choir.

The WCN reports that the resulting film would “be shown in a monthly feature after the style of ‘March of Time’ and called ‘The Mining Review’.”

Does anyone remember appearing in this film? And, incidentally, when did the choir eventually call it a day?

Just a few local films I’ve seen mention of in our old local papers. I’m sure there were many more. It would be a shame if they were lost or destroyed.

In 1904, the photographic studio in Roper Street, belonging to the Misses Bramwell and Ferguson, was seriously damaged by fire. It was, reportedly, a “wooden structure with a corrugated tin roof”. The fire gutted the studio, damaged their photographic equipment and destroyed their total stock of 5,000 negatives. The cost of the damage came to £400. Luckily, they were insured.

They lost no money. But how many historical photographs were lost forever?