This is a collection of films made by filmmakers belonging to Halifax Cine Club in the 1950s. In all probability it would have been the same group who contributed to filming Saturday Morning Out - Halifax Etc. (1951-1965) made during the same period. One of these would have probably been Ron Normanton, who can be seen in the film Opening Of The Serbian Orthodox Church (1954). Another may be Eric Marshall, on whom see another Halifax Cine Club production, New Horizons (1952). The film brings...

This is a collection of films made by filmmakers belonging to Halifax Cine Club in the 1950s. In all probability it would have been the same group who contributed to filming Saturday Morning Out - Halifax Etc. (1951-1965) made during the same period. One of these would have probably been Ron Normanton, who can be seen in the film Opening Of The Serbian Orthodox Church (1954). Another may be Eric Marshall, on whom see another Halifax Cine Club production, New Horizons (1952).

The film brings together a fascinating collection of events relating to Halifax, starting with the civil defence exercise. What is intriguing about this is the fact that it is happening at all. This was the kind of thing that was common in the early years of World War Two, when there were bombs dropping, and there is nothing obvious in the exercise that would distinguish it from a decade earlier – either with the cobbled streets or the clothes.  The reference to the atomic bomb gives it away – the H bomb (using nuclear fusion rather than fission) wasn’t properly tested until the following year. Oddly this exercise took place just a couple of weeks before the armistice ending the Korean War was signed on July 27th – in which the UK was fighting  through NATO.  The threat of a nuclear attack arising from this conflict was rather slim; but in any case the exercise seen in the film hardly looks like it is dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear bomb!  The only other conflict that Britain was involved in at the time was with the Mau Mau rebellion on Kenya; but there was hardly any threat of atomic attack from this! 

The real background was the on-going cold war between the US and the USSR (the first James Bond, Casino Royale, came out this year). In January of 1953 Eisenhower took office as President of the US with an aggressive foreign policy towards the Soviet Union, and a defence policy relying heavily on nuclear weapons. The dangers of these were nearly revealed when in March 1953 a B-47 bomber accidentally dropped an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina; fortunately it was not prepared for detonation.  Stalin died on March 5th,leaving a power vacuum and a struggle for control. It was a while before Khrushchev emerged on top, bringing in a less strident regime making peaceful overtures that Eisenhower was to take seriously. Nevertheless, the cold war was now in full swing, and was to continue right up to 1989 (if indeed it has finished). The rather desultory civil defence preparations for a nuclear attack remained throughout this period – and were frequently derided.

A Home Defence Committee had been set up in February, Chaired by Sir Norman Brooke, to look at civil defence planning in the event of a war. These exercises may well have been a result of this. Later on the Hall Report of 1953 called for “a period of unparalleled intensity”.  According to Steve Fox, the Report estimated that in the event of war, “the UK would be subjected to very heavy atomic and conventional air attack and could expect to be hit with between 100 and 200 (134 were actually used for planning purposes) atomic bombs of the Hiroshima type (i.e. up to 20 kilotons) directed at London, the major ports, centres of population and industry and atomic air bases” (References).   Thankfully, this was not to pass.  Yet although there might have been no need for the Civil Defence Corps to deal with a war, the well-trained volunteers were called to events such as the severe flooding at Linton and Lynmouth in 1952, and the East Coast floods in February 1953.


The next two sporting items are of interest too. The football training routine – group passing and slalom dribbling – is still familiar today.   They certainly needed it, as although they finished a respectable 14th the season before, in this season, 1953/54, they come second from bottom the previous season of the old Division 3 North.   Halifax had been stuck in this Division since it was formed in 1921 (becoming just Division 3 in 1958). It was no surprise therefore when their manager, Gerry Hanley –who had played for them, as well as for Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield Wednesday –left in October 1954. Still, he did get them to the FA Cup 5th round for the first time ever the previous season, drawing a record crowd of 36,885 against Tottenham (the Spurs of Arthur Rowe won 3.0). 

The Shay Stadium, looking somewhat worse for wear here, was closed in 1985; leading also to the Halifax Dukes speedway transferring to Bradford – see 1985 World Speedway Final At Odsal .  The club got into severe debt in recent years and was actually wound up in 2008, only to re-emerge as F.C. Halifax Town to play in the Northern Premier League Division One.   The game in the film, against Gateshead (white shirts, black shorts), was the first of the season; it ended in a goalless draw.


The Challenge Cup Final replay at Odsal - Warrington v Halifax - expected to attract around 70,000, so the world record crowd of 102,569 was a surprise. Many have put the figure at closer to 120,000 as some fences at the Stadium had been flattened, leading to the belief that many had got in without paying (see the excellent coverage of the match on ‘era of the biff’). The film gives a good idea of just how many this was, and how they crowded onto the sloping terraces (with amazingly only the odd casualty). The current capacity of the re-built stadium is 6,561! 

Warrington (wearing white with a double band on their shirts) defeated Halifax (wearing horizontal stripes on their shirts and socks) 8-4 in this replay after a 4-4 draw at Wembley, with Gerry Helme scoring the winning try. That season, 1953/4, Warrington also won the League Championship and the Lancashire League. Note that the way that ‘Hamberges’ is spelt at the ground – interestingly there is a place in Tulsa, where the first hamburger was reputedly served, that still spells them this way: ‘Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamberges’. 

The game was also filmed by others, as can be seen on YouTube. In fact if you look closely at this you might be able to see the makers of this film in the act of filming (at around 55 seconds). This also provides an informative commentary.

Eric Portman was a well-known actor who was born in Halifax at 71 Chester Road, Akroydon, Halifax, the third of four children in 1901. He opened the Molletts store in Silver Street on 5th November.  Portman was an appropriate choice as he started work in 1922 as a salesman in the menswear department at Marshall and Snelgrove's department store in Leeds. He started acting with the amateur Halifax Light Opera Society, and made his professional stage debut in 1924 with Henry Baynton's company. He later became a renown Shakespeare actor and appeared in many films, including those of Powell and Pressburger: portraying a determined Nazi U-Boat commander in 49th Parallel (1941), and a heroic RAF officer stranded in Holland in One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942). Like other actors of the time, Portman kept his homosexuality a secret – despite the Wolfenden Report of 1957 it was ten years before it was, partially, legalised. In that same year, 1967, Portman played Number Two in the TV series The Prisoner.   

Eric Portman naturally had an association also with Halifax theatres: in 1956 he brought the London company of Separate Tables to Halifax for a special production to raise funds for the failing Grand Theatre. Three years later, on 31st May 1959, Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King And I was to be the last performance before the Palace Theatre was closed.   It was a joint production by Halifax Amateur Operatic and Halifax Light Opera Societies.  Apparently, when it was being built in the cold winter of 1902, sugar was added to the mix: hence it being dubbed “Britain’s sweetest theatre”.    The Theatre attracted many top stars, including Charlie Chaplin, at just 17, George Formby, Gracie Fields, Houdini and Halifax's own Wilfred Pickles. But as TV grew in the 1950s, theatres, and the variety acts, went into sharp decline. 

It didn’t take long before demolition work began, during Wakes Week, on the Ward's End building, now the site of the Pride of Whitby. Along with it went 340 lots – artefacts and fittings – under the hammer of auctioneer Paul Laycock. The Grand Theatre had closed shortly before in 1956 after much of the ornamental plasterwork fell off the auditorium ceiling (fortunately it was closed at the time).  Yet Halifax has a great tradition of theatre groups and of theatres, and has at least two theatres, the Playhouse and the Victoria, still in operation.

Just as the theatres were closing, Halifax started its first Gala at Manor Heath, in September 1957 (later moving to June).  Organised by members of Halifax Round it attracted around 10,000 people; raising £600 for various charities. These annual events, along with the processions, show how much Halifax enjoys its entertainment – see also the film, just called Halifax (1959), and Saturday Morning Out – Halifax (1951 – 1965). It shows that despite the very real fear of nuclear annihilation of the time – The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was formed in 1958 – life just went on as normal.

 References

Lorna Arnold and  Katherine Pyne, Britain and the H-bomb, Palgrave MacMillan, 2001

Jennifer Cole, Review of After the Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain, 1945-68 by Matthew Grant

Steve Fox, The Regional War Rooms: 1950's

Historical Football Kits

Stato.com Halifax Town

era of the biff

Eric Portman at Malcolm Bull’s Calderdale Companion

Eric Portman Biography

Theatres and Halls in Halifax

When things went sour for Britain's 'sweetest,' The Palace Theatre, Halifax Courier