Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 2547 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| BIRDWELL PRIMARY SCHOOL MAY QUEEN 1958-1960 | 1958-1960 | 1958-01-01 |
|
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 27 mins 20 secs Credits: Ron Beardshall Subject: Education |
| Summary This is a film of the May Queen celebrations at this school in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in three years - 1958, 1959 and 1960 - filmed by Ron Beardshall, a colliery welder and husband of the school deputy Head Teacher, Elizabeth Beardshall. As well as the crowning of the new Queen, the children perform a variety of acts watched by parents and rel ... |
|
Description
This is a film of the May Queen celebrations at this school in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in three years - 1958, 1959 and 1960 - filmed by Ron Beardshall, a colliery welder and husband of the school deputy Head Teacher, Elizabeth Beardshall. As well as the crowning of the new Queen, the children perform a variety of acts watched by parents and relatives: including, the acting out of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, games and country dancing, with dancing around the Maypole.
Title (held up by...
This is a film of the May Queen celebrations at this school in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in three years - 1958, 1959 and 1960 - filmed by Ron Beardshall, a colliery welder and husband of the school deputy Head Teacher, Elizabeth Beardshall. As well as the crowning of the new Queen, the children perform a variety of acts watched by parents and relatives: including, the acting out of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, games and country dancing, with dancing around the Maypole.
Title (held up by two schoolgirls) - Birdwell Primary School Queen Crowning Wednesday 25th May 1958 at 2pm. Procession of the Retiring Queen, Carole Shemwell
Four children, in historic costume, blow bugles to announce the forthcoming Queen, who is accompanied by a procession of boys and girls carrying flowers. The Queen makes her way onto the stage and is crowned by a small boy. Two small boys hold up a plaque:
Intertitle – Infants; horse parade – guard of honour – flower dance
Boys and girls run onto the stage in pairs holding hands wearing dancing costumes. They take seats to watch a slightly older group of boys march onto the stage. They are followed by girls dancing and holding round garlands of flowers. These they place on the floor in a circle and dance around them. All the boys and girls line up, and a girl holds up a plaque:
Intertitle - Procession of New Queen, Susan Wade
There follows another procession with the new Queen similarly escorted by girls, and given a salute by a line of boys. The new Queen is crowned and she gives a speech. A boy holds up a plaque:
Intertitle - Some of the Audience
The large crowd of onlooking parents are shown. Two boys hold up a plaque:
Intertitle - Juniors on the village green
The boys and girls in historic dress march onto the Green playing musical instruments stop and start singing. Some hold up a banner announcing the events. Boys stand with their backs to the audience wearing masks attached to the back of their heads and perform various ceremonial movements. A boy wheels on a music box adorned with painted birds, followed by boys and girls dancing, and wearing gypsy looking costumes. The children perform other acts, some dressed as monkeys doing rock and roll jive dancing. They then dance around the Maypole, followed by more singing. Small boys dance in formation with tambourines for the crowd, and others perform small plays.
Two girls hold up a plaque:
Intertitle - Recession
The Queen is escorted away, and the children pose for the camera in their normal school clothes, outside the school. They are shown across the road by the crossing lady.
Intertitle - Birdwell Primary School Queen Crowning 1959
A boy holds up a credit:
Filmed by Ron Beardshall - the End
There is a brief shot of a tall brick edifice, looking like Cleopatra’s Needle, followed by a school boy and girl holding a plaque:
Intertitle – Birdwell Primary school – School Queen Crowning 1959 – Procession of Retiring Queen, Susan Wade
The boys and girls are all lined up singing to the accompaniment to a teacher playing a piano, as the retiring Queen makes her way off with her entourage of girls in pink dresses, after making a speech. Two boys hold up a plaque:
Intertitle – Class 2 Boys: Tambourine Dancing Girls: Petal Showers
Boys do a dance with tambourines, whilst girls walk in a procession throwing petals from baskets. A girl holds a plaque:
Intertitle – Procession of New Queen, Alison Green
The procession includes girls in blue dresses and boys wearing kilts. The new Queen is escorted onto the stage by three boys where she is crowned. Again the parents and other relatives are shown sat watching. Two girls hold up a plaque:
Intertitle – Class 1 Nursery Rhymes
The children enact various nursery rhymes. They then stage a comedy routine with a boy playing a schoolteacher.
Intertitle – Class 1 Country dancing
The children perform various country dances.
Intertitle – Watch Your Step, Class 3
Children show the correct way to cross the road, looking in both direction, whilst other children ride past in tricycles. There is another comedy routine, at a dentist. Two boys hold up a plaque:
Intertitle – Class 6 Dashing White Sergeant Maypole Dancing
Children do a country dance, followed by a maypole dance. The Queen then takes her leave. A girl holds up a plaque:
Intertitle – Filmed and edited by Ron Beardshall
Some children play in a field.
The End
Intertitle – Some of the Audience
The audience is shown followed by more comedy acts, sketches and country dancing performed by the children. A board shows the marks for a talent competition, with: Hinchliffe Hall Tinies; Fergusan Dancing Group; Low Mass Dramatic Club; Wood Ville Drama Club; Beard’s Hall Pantomime Troupe. A boy ‘films’ the performances with a mock BBC film camera.
Intertitle – Class 3 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The class act out Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, some dressed in animal costumes, and there is a brief scene from another performance before the film comes to an end.
Context
This film is one of several made by Ron Beardshall, a colliery welder and husband of the school deputy Head Teacher, Elizabeth Beardshall. He filmed the School Mayday celebrations each year between 1954 and 1964, as well as some other school events, including the School’s 70th anniversary celebrations in 1963. His wife was also a teacher at the school. It is one of a number of films made by school teachers of their schools in the post-war decades. Others include Archbishop Holgate School...
This film is one of several made by Ron Beardshall, a colliery welder and husband of the school deputy Head Teacher, Elizabeth Beardshall. He filmed the School Mayday celebrations each year between 1954 and 1964, as well as some other school events, including the School’s 70th anniversary celebrations in 1963. His wife was also a teacher at the school. It is one of a number of films made by school teachers of their schools in the post-war decades. Others include Archbishop Holgate School (1957) in York by French teacher Robert Milligan, and JosephRowntree Senior – New Earswick (1947) by the Head Teacher Edward Lightowler. Also from around this time, 1959, and not far away in Castleford, is Kindergarten, made by Eric Bolderson, with the help of his sister who was a nursery teacher.
There are also collections of films of High Green Secondary School and Newfield School, both in Sheffield and both made by teachers. Filming of children in schools was restricted under the 1998 Data Protection Act, although it is allowed on conditions, if permission is granted - for personal, official and media use. However, amatuer film of this kind would be unlikely to be allowed since the Act came into force (see Guidance Notes in References). The film is also one of many films featuring the celebration of the May Queen, which can also be seen, for example, in Children's Day in Leeds (1951). The historian Ronald Hutton notes that May was a time of relative lull in the farm work calendar, and it brought with it a favourable change in the weather for outdoor merrymaking. The Church encouraged this to take place on the two days after the Whitsun feast in order to turn it into a Christian festival and combat the more excessive elements of drinking and sexual liaisons. Records for these occasions only go back to the late middle ages, but there is every reason to believe that they go back much further than this. One part of this was bringing home garlands of flowers (such as hawthorn) for decoration – ‘bringing in May’ or ‘for the making of May’: in short, ‘Maying’. There was also song and dance – not to mention ‘debauchery’, for which the festivities were condemned, especially at the height of the Protestant Reformation in England. In fact just mixed-sex dancing on its own was a no-no for evangelical Protestants right up to the 18th century, when maypoles flourished, although they were in decline by the end of the century. It isn’t known for sure when Maypoles became established in Britain, but they were by the time of Chaucer in the 14th century. Neither is it sure what they, if anything, symbolised. Hutton suggests, picking up from Mircea Eliade, that they simply represented “rejoicing at the return of vegetation.” (p 234). See also the Context for The Fall And Rise Of The Barwick Maypole 1978 In the latter half of the 19th century a custom developed of small girls going from house to house with garlands, in return for money. Schools took this up in the late 19th century as a means of controlling ‘unofficial’ customs, many of which were becoming absorbed into school and church life. Hutton states that: “In 1896 the folklorist Charlotte Burne suggested that the tradition would be both preserved and controlled by school or parish competitions, adults giving the prizes and impounding the proceeds of the collections to provide tea for the children or divide them equally between the latter.” (p 238) Charles Kightly adds that, “children were encouraged to dance ‘innocent measure’ taught by the Guild of Merry England.” (p 160) The dancing that the children perform in the film is originally based on the dances of village greens up and down the country that Queen Elizabeth I had observed, and introduced into her court. The music and instructions for the dances were set down by John Playford in The English Dancing Master, first published in 1651. Like many similar country customs, it fell away during the 19th century but was rediscovered by the English musicologist and folklorist Cecil Sharp in the early 20th century. Hence it too was revived by schools, and although it may have declined as a school activity, with local school competitions, English country dancing is still thriving in many schools across the UK – though this seems to be patchy and is probably dependent on the interest and enthusiasm of members of the teaching staff. Those familiar with English Country dancing may recognise some of the dances in the film – see Colin Hume's Interpretations for some examples of better known dances. Similar country dancing can be seen in Children's Day in Leeds (1951) – and for more on English country dancing see Kirkby Malzeard Sword Dancers At Azerley(1930-1932). Birdwell Primary School was originally built in 1894, but since this film was made has undergone a significant extension, in 1968. It isn’t clear whether the school still has English country dancing – it isn’t mentioned on their website – but it has recently received a good Ofsted Report. Perhaps the best known of Birdwell’s past residents is the black comedian Charlie Williams, who lived there from 1974 until his death in 2006, and which now has a commemorative bench for him at The Walk. At the time of this film Charlie was living nearby and playing for Doncaster Rovers, about to start a new career performing in working men’s clubs. I’m sure Charlie would have appreciated the children’s attempts at comedy that have been nicely captured in this film. References Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford University Press, 1996. Douglas Kennedy, English Folk Dancing: Today and Yesterday, Bell and Sons, London, 1964. Charles Kightly, The Customs and Ceremonies of Britain, Thames and Hudson, 1986. Hugh Rippon, Discovering English Folk Dance, Shire, 1975. Colin Hume's Interpretations Gene Murrow, Introduction To The Country Dance Birdwell Primary School Charlie Williams Obituary, The Independent Data Protection Good Practice Note, Taking Photographs in Schools |
