An amusing film of a diving competition, the Severn Bridge and a Wildlife park

The film I’ve included below is a typical 1960s home movie with a mixed bag of subjects which include some film taken whilst crossing the Severn Bridge, traffic on the M4 and wildlife shots from one of the wildlife parks in the UK.

About the Severn Bridge film

The film is a Super 8, Agfa film which I obtained by a slightly different mechanism than that I would normally use. This film is one of a number which were donated to the Vintage Home Movies site by someone who had some films from a recently passed relative, and she wanted to make sure they were put to good use rather than being just thrown away.

She contacted me via email and made the offer and after a few exchanged emails we found by an amazing coincidence that we actually live only a few hundred yards away from each other! I therefore donated the money I would have paid for postage to her and walked to her house to pick up the films.

As I said above, the film is typical of many home movies taken at the time in that it covers a variety of subjects. Film was an expensive commodity, and quite often a photographer would try to cover several events, especially if their main purpose was to record family events.

This film has three main subject areas.

The first, short section, was shot at a diving competition or possibly at a local swimming club. One can imagine a proud Mum or Dad recording a few seconds of their child to be shown at family gatherings in the years to come.

There is then quite a long section of film recording a journey over the Severn Bridge on the M4 motorway. This may seem an odd subject for a family film but the bridge was constructed in 1966, so it could be that when this film was shot, it was quite a novel experience and therefore quite film worthy. The film shows some shots from a stationary position first, and then some scenes are filmed from within a car as it approaches the toll booths and then crosses the river Severn.

The final half of the film was taken at a wildlife park. At first, I thought it may have been shot at a farm because the animals shown are pigs, but then there are some flamingos shown, which are not generally seen as farm animals, so I revised my though processes!