Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 4611 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| KNITTING PRETTY | c.1955 | 1952-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 28 mins 40 secs Credits: Sound recording at United Motion Pictures Studios, London. With commentary spoken by Marjorie Westbury. Directed for Messrs. Lister & Co. Ltd by E.Milton Stoney Produced and photographed by C.H.Wood Subject: Working Life Industry Fashions |
| Summary This film is part of the C.H. Wood collection and shows the working life of a Lister's Knitting Adviser. The film contains footage of the woman in her office, helping customers in various wool shops and demonstrating how to knit. |
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Description
This film is part of the C.H. Wood collection and shows the working life of a Lister's Knitting Adviser. The film contains footage of the woman in her office, helping customers in various wool shops and demonstrating how to knit.
Title-Lister Presents
Title-Knitting Pretty
In Lavenda
Title-A Knitting Adviser showing how
Title-to choose and to use knitting wools
Title-With commentary spoken by Marjorie Westbury.
Title-The producers acknowledge with thanks facilities provided by...
This film is part of the C.H. Wood collection and shows the working life of a Lister's Knitting Adviser. The film contains footage of the woman in her office, helping customers in various wool shops and demonstrating how to knit.
Title-Lister Presents
Title-Knitting Pretty
In Lavenda
Title-A Knitting Adviser showing how
Title-to choose and to use knitting wools
Title-With commentary spoken by Marjorie Westbury.
Title-The producers acknowledge with thanks facilities provided by
Messrs John Mollett Ltd
Messrs Brown Muff & Co. Ltd
Messrs Busby's (Bradford) Ltd.
Title-Filmed in Kodachrome Natural colour
Title-Sound recording at United Motion Pictures Studios, London.
Title-Directed for Messrs. Lister & Co. Ltd by E.Milton Stoney
Title-Produced and photographed by C.H. Wood
The film opens in an office full of women who are knitting at their desks; one of the women goes over to another woman to show her the item that she is knitting. They are all wearing work smocks.
Outside on the wall is a sign which reads `Lister & Co. (Knitting Wools) Limited. Registered Office.
A woman walks into the building and up to the security guard who hands her post. She continues on up the stairs and into the Knitwear Department where she takes a seat at her desk and puts her handbag in her drawer. Behind her some of the women are ironing garments and all around are items relating to knitting.
The voiceover of the woman says that she is Patricia Scott and she is one of Lister's Knitting Advisers. She says that she spends most of her time in different knitting stores and shops advising customers on the best wool, technique and patterns to use. There is a shot of her putting knitting needles and wool into a bag and the voiceover says that she is on her way to a store.
The scene changes and Patricia is sitting at a table, in a wool store, knitting. Over at the counter a customer is trying to decide on a pattern so Patricia goes over to help her. She brings over a sample of different types and colours of wool and lets the customer browse through them. Patricia says that she can often help the customer as she can imagine what the finished garment will look like on them and can advise accordingly. The shot of the customer fades and is replaced by a shot of her wearing the finished garment. The voiceover says that there are many Lavenda wools for all your needs and they have been tested thoroughly to make sure that they are correct for their purpose.
There is a sequence of shots showing the process that the wool goes through to become wool. There are also shots of the laboratory technicians carrying out tests on the wool. A man pulls on the fibres to see how far they stretch and a woman looks at fibres through a microscope. The voiceover describes several types of wool as well as showing models wearing garments made from that particular wool. The wools mentioned are Botany and Crossbred. There are scenarios with models playing golf, cricket, young boys playing, a man climbing and a young toddler, all wearing woollen garments.
The voiceover says that it is also very important to choose the correct ply in wool. There are close up shots of machines twisting two, three and four ply threads into wool. Then there are diagrams showing how many balls of wool you will need to make a three and four ply jacket.
In the following section Patricia is back at the wool counter and is helping another customer to choose wool; she shows her wool and well as finished garments. She also shows the customer baby jackets made from Lavenda Baby Wool.
Patricia gives advice on the best way to wind the wool once you have bought it, the best needles to use and how to hold the needles while you knit. Then she illustrates how to measure your knitting so that you are knitting the correct amount of stitches. She also demonstrates how to cast on, cast off, and make up the finished sections of the garment. There is a long sequence demonstrating how to sew the finished pieces together and how to sew socks.
The section goes on to show other types of knitting stitches and then how to wash and dry your woollen garments. The final section is a re-cap of the various types of wool garments being worn by people.
Title-Spun and Dyed at Lister & Co. (Knitting Wools) Limited, Bradford, England.
Title-The end C.H. Wood, Bradford.
Context
This is one of a very large collection of films made by film production company C.H. Wood of Bradford. The collection consists of approximately 2500 film and video elements including titles dating back to 1915. Charles Wood senior was a notable gas engineer, gaining an OBE in the 1880s. Rather remarkably, he designed Moscow’s gas system after the 1917 revolution. His son, Charles Harold Wood, set up the company of C.H. Wood’s in the 1920s. Charles was employed by both Pathé and Gaumont as...
This is one of a very large collection of films made by film production company C.H. Wood of Bradford. The collection consists of approximately 2500 film and video elements including titles dating back to 1915. Charles Wood senior was a notable gas engineer, gaining an OBE in the 1880s. Rather remarkably, he designed Moscow’s gas system after the 1917 revolution. His son, Charles Harold Wood, set up the company of C.H. Wood’s in the 1920s. Charles was employed by both Pathé and Gaumont as a cameraman for the northern region. C.H. Wood specialised in aerial photography and filmmaking. Charles used the expertise he had developed through his aerial photography to good effect during the Second World War when he pioneered infra-red lenses, used by the Dambusters, and for which he too earned an OBE. His sons, David and Malcolm Wood, took over the company, which was for a time known as ‘Wood Visual Communications.’ The company closed down in 2002. See the Context for The Magnet Cup 1960 for more on C.H. Wood.
C.H. Wood’s made lots of promotional films for Yorkshire businesses, both heavy and light industry, as well as quite a few commercials for TV. Among those specifically for textiles are ones for Birstall Carpets and Lamtex Rugs. They made another film for Lister & Co around the same time as this film, It All Began With Velvet (1955). Harold Wood combined his air photography and filming with his work for local businesses, showing the companies from above. Among the C.H. Wood archives is a brochure for Lister & Co., Manningham Mills in Bradford, which features several such photographs of the factory taken from an airplane – see Flying 1 & 2 (1928-1933). In a talk that Charles Wood gave shortly after this film was made he explained how important it was to get to know exactly what the sponsor of the film wanted. In the case of Listers they wanted the film to establish, right at the beginning without commentary, that the company was big, that it had a large staff, and that the main character in the film, the Knitting Advisor, was important. In fact, the scenario he gives in his talk doesn’t exactly match the finished film as seen here. Lister's were major forerunners in the production of wool near the beginning of the industrial revolution when West Yorkshire was dominant in the wool industry. Samuel and John Lister, his elder brother, started as worsted spinners and manufacturers in 1838. Their father – Ellis Cunliffe Lister of Manningham Hall, who was MP for Bradford at the time – built them a new mill in Manningham, Bradford, known variously as Lister's Mill and Manningham Mills. Altogether Ellis Lister built and leased four worsted mills in Bradford. Manningham Hall and grounds sold to Bradford Corporation for over £40,000 (around £10 million) in 1870, to create Lister Park and Cartwright Hall. By 1844 Samuel Lister had been granted over a hundred patents relating to the preparation and weaving of cloth (he still has more patents than any other Englishman). Manningham Mills was destroyed by fire in 1870 and rebuilt as the current building, in the Italianate style of Victorian architecture, in 1873. At the time it was the largest silk factory in the world. It is now a Grade II* listed building, with its 255 feet chimney still a dominant feature of the skyline. At its height they employed 11,000 men, women and children - manufacturing high-quality textiles such as velvet and silk: supplying velvet for King George V's coronation. In December 1890 a famous strike at the mill was provoked by a reduction in wages for the, mostly women, weavers, pickers, spoolers and winders. These made up over a 5th of the 5,000 workforce. Lister blamed the recent 25% tariff that America imposed on imported velvet, and threatened a lock-out if workers did not accept. Although unions and societies across the West Riding set up a fund to support the striking workers, and they enjoyed much support, with 90,000 attending one meeting, with no strike fund or any other source of money, the strikers were eventually forced to return to work after 19 weeks. The strike had wider significance in that it directly contributed to the forming of the Bradford Labour Union a month following the end of the dispute, and later the Independent Labour Party, which was formed in Bradford in 1893 – forerunner of the Labour Party. In the aftermath of the austerity of the war years and the 1940s, Lister’s prospered during the 1950s, with refugees from Eastern Europe and workers from the Indian subcontinent moved into the local industry. Yet although they were noted for the high quality of their products, foreign competition and changing textile trends, including increased use of artificial fibres, led to a decline, especially by the 1980s, and in 1992 the mills were closed. The mill was bought up by property developers Urban Splash in 2000, who have started a plan of renovation of the building into apartments, workplaces, shops and public spaces, in association with Yorkshire Forward, Bradford Council and English Heritage – they are currently working on Phase 2 of the project. Knitting with needles is probably one of the oldest practices still going, dating back to the Middle East in the early Middle Ages. It was certainly very popular in the 1950s, and there are still plenty of Lavenda wool Knitting Patterns available online from this decade, but it doesn’t seem to have lasted beyond this. Woolly jumpers were perfectly fashionable into the 1960s; but after then, at least for men, they became very unfashionable: being in any way associated with Val Doonican was very much a no no. But all it takes is some trendy young pop star to start wearing wool and it can all change. Recently, luxury knitwear has led to British mill production increasing by 12% in 2011. Peter Ackroyd – not the historian, but an adviser for Woolmark (whose father's company spun hand-knitted yarns in West Yorkshire) – is quoted in the Guardian as saying in 2012: "Four years ago I was told I was a fool to talk about manufacturing in the UK, but mills are now working longer hours, we're seeing old family businesses, such as James Laxton in Bradford, reopen spinning mills in Yorkshire”. Jonathan D Fitzgerald, author of Not Your Mother's Morals: How the New Sincerity Is Changing Pop Culture for the Better, argues that the new craze for patterned woollens (especially Christmas ones) is not about being ironic, but is “deeply rooted in a longing for the heartfelt and the sincere”. Whether this leads to any similar comeback for knitting one’s own is anybody’s guess – the ‘History of knitting’ entry in Wikipedia gives evidence for a revival. With a recession and Sarah Lund jumpers selling at over £150, minimum, who knows. References Asa Briggs, ‘Manningham Mills, Bradford’, History Today, 2002. Lex Heerma Van Voss, Els Hiemstra Kuperus and Elise Van Nederveen Meerkerk (editors), The Ashgate Companion to the History of Textile Workers: 1650-2000, Ashgate, 2010. Grace’s Guide, Listers Silk Lister Mills Redevelopment Fashion world warms again to wool, the Guardian The rise of ironic Christmas jumpers History of knitting, Wikipedia |
