Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 21365 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
WALLIS'S CAYTON BAY HOLIDAY CAMP | 1950s | 1950-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 9.5mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 5 mins 46 secs Credits: Individuals: Leonard Winter, Jean Winter Genre: Home Movie Subject: Travel Seaside Family Life |
Summary This home movie documents a family’s summer holiday in a caravan at Wallis’s Cayton Bay Holiday Camp, near Scarborough, on the North Yorkshire coast in the 1950s, including group games at the camp. It was made by Middlesbrough amateur filmmakers Leonard and Jean Winter. Some scenes are staged for the camera, a characteristic of many of their holida ... |
Description
This home movie documents a family’s summer holiday in a caravan at Wallis’s Cayton Bay Holiday Camp, near Scarborough, on the North Yorkshire coast in the 1950s, including group games at the camp. It was made by Middlesbrough amateur filmmakers Leonard and Jean Winter. Some scenes are staged for the camera, a characteristic of many of their holiday films and beach trips. Leonard Winter also worked with the Cleveland Cine Club. This film is part of the Newcastle & District Amateur...
This home movie documents a family’s summer holiday in a caravan at Wallis’s Cayton Bay Holiday Camp, near Scarborough, on the North Yorkshire coast in the 1950s, including group games at the camp. It was made by Middlesbrough amateur filmmakers Leonard and Jean Winter. Some scenes are staged for the camera, a characteristic of many of their holiday films and beach trips. Leonard Winter also worked with the Cleveland Cine Club. This film is part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection.
The home movie opens with a shot of some promotional brochures and the front page of The Mercury newspaper declaring “Sunshine entertainment at Wallis’s Camp”. The camera zooms in on a photograph of the whitewashed entertainment pavilion, the Rendezvous Club, which dissolves into a general view of the club, with its Spanish Colonial style façade. A sign for “Wallis’s Cayton Bay Holiday Camp” stands near the building. General view of the camp stores, holiday makers strolling around. A woman walks by followed by four children in their swimming costumes. In the background there’s the Wallis’s Camp Office with a public red weighing machine in its forecourt, and a snack bar next door.
At the camp caravan site, children knock a ball around with their mother. Rows of white, blue and eau de nil caravans are parked in rows. Women in 1950s summer fashions are strolling with their kids. The Winters' daughter and friend skip happily up a lane at the caravan park, and sometime later, race back, one carrying a shopping bag. They run to a white and sky blue caravan. Two small boys are hanging around the caravan, soon joined by a toddler.
A sign for Wallis’s Holiday Camp is displayed on the front of a three-seat bike for hire at the camp. Boys wait at the “social cycles” hire service office. The two girls and a younger boy pedal around the caravans on one of the bikes. A travelling shot from the tourist cycle moving around the caravans, and another shot of the children enjoying their ride, follow. Holiday makers buy ice creams from a stall, and others are waiting at a Walli-Photos cabin near the sea front. Campers mill around the Camp Stores, a woman in bright blue pedal pushers walking past. Other stores at the camp site sell postcards and milk and farm produce. A sign advertises “B. Took Camp Butcher”, hung from a van. Customers queue for their meat, sold from the back of the van. A point of view shot from the two-seater cycle follows, passing other families walking through the camp. The next shot is of Leonard Winter in a beret with his daughter and friend, arriving back at their caravan on the three wheeler bike, where Jean Winter is waiting inside for the shopping.
Family wheelbarrow races, a greasy pole pillow fight and a women’s apple bobbing contest take place in the field at the edge of the caravan site, watched by a good crowd of families in the sunshine.
Two elegantly dressed women, including Jean Winter and a friend in a ‘coolie’ sun hat (Asian conical hat) and dark glasses, pick up another friend from a small cabin. They head out of camp to the beach at Cayton Bay. General views of the not too busy beach.
Leonard Winter opens up his red and cream portable radio, and leans back in a deck chair with his sun visor on. Seated in another deck chair, Jean Winter takes off her mac to reveal her swimsuit. She goes to play in the sea with the two children, jumping the waves. Back on the beach, her husband is snoozing happily in the sun. Jean dries herself off, wrapped in a towel. Their daughter plays beach ball with another girl. Another woman sunbathes on the sand in an emerald green bikini. One of the girls throws a ball, hitting Leonard Winter on his head. Close-up of the girl as she looks worried. Leonard is woken from his slumber and looks around. One of the girls chases after the ball. General view of the beach, now more crowded.
General views of the entrance to the camp with the camp stores, and Filey Road outside Wallis’s Cayton Bay Holiday Camp end the film.
Title: The End
Context
At Cayton Bay Walli-days are Jolli-days
A pastel-coloured dream of a home movie harks back to the 50s heyday of a popular holiday camp at Cayton Bay.
Shot at Wallis’s Camp Cayton Bay, near Scarborough, talented cine hobbyist Leonard Winter constructs an ice cream dream of a 50s family holiday film. A phantom ride shot from a quirky duo ‘social cycle’ for hire gives us a tour of the two-tone caravans, dinky chalet huts and the popular Rendezvous Club. Swell fun too to be had on the beach,...
At Cayton Bay Walli-days are Jolli-days
A pastel-coloured dream of a home movie harks back to the 50s heyday of a popular holiday camp at Cayton Bay. Shot at Wallis’s Camp Cayton Bay, near Scarborough, talented cine hobbyist Leonard Winter constructs an ice cream dream of a 50s family holiday film. A phantom ride shot from a quirky duo ‘social cycle’ for hire gives us a tour of the two-tone caravans, dinky chalet huts and the popular Rendezvous Club. Swell fun too to be had on the beach, where father settles into a deckchair with his new Vidor ‘Robot Face’ portable radio, whilst mother models the latest in swimwear. It started back in the 1930s, but Wallis’s took on the Cayton Bay holiday camp in 1946, keeping the pre-war caravans. The camp’s memorable jingle famously advertised ‘Walli-days are Jolli-days’. The well-loved Rendezvous Club was built in 1955 and was later used as the location for Mr Boo’s seedy nightclub in the 1998 British film Little Voice. |