A Charming family trip to Lake Windermere in the 1960s

The charming film featured in this post was taken by a family who wanted to highlight a day out for their children on a steamer on Lake Windermere in the Lake District.

The photographer used a story book presentation to make a much more interesting film than would have been made by just filming the day and I guess made a more memorable keepsake for the family as a result of the extra care and attention taken.

I don’t know exactly when the film was shot but I would guess sometime in the 1960s; the Hillman car seen in the film certainly seems to date from that period to me. The location of the majority of the film is quite obviously Lake Windermere in the Lake District, and I’m going to assume that the family lived in the North of England because they made the trip in a single day so were within easy driving distance.

The film was taken on Ilford standard 8mm film, and I used a stabilisation filter to remove some jerkiness from some sections of the film.

Some still images from the film

These are some still images which were taken from the film after it had been converted to digital format.

Lake Windermere film

As I said above this charming film uses a story book approach to make the film of a day in Lake Windermere into a more entertaining keepsake than it would otherwise be. The film starts with images of a book being opened and then each page turn narrates the next set of scenes of follow.

Looking at the story book now it seems a nice, simple action to add this book to the film, but I was impressed with the quality of the writing and presentation of the book. These days it would be simple to word process and print a book, but in the early 1960s it would all have to have been hand produced and written. Mind you, it’s also true to say that in the 1960s people probably had neater handwriting because they practiced it far more than we do today.

I suppose the things which stand out in a vintage home movie will depend on the events in the watcher’s life which resonate, but for me there were several things which stirred memories.

For example, the cap gun the young boy was playing with made me think of a similar gun I used and the reel of caps which I bought from the local toy shop. I can still remember the distinctive smell when the gun was fired. I guess, quite rightly, boys don’t play with toy guns now so I wonder if you can still buy caps?

The other thing which made me remember my childhood was the image of the boy asleep in the back of the car for the journey home. I remember many times falling asleep in the back of one of our cars (the one I remember oddly was a Hillman) and I also remember being carried out of the car and into the house after we returned home from a day out.

Watch the Lake Windermere film below and see if it stirs any memories for you.