A sunny seaside holiday in the 1960s

This post includes a vintage home movie from the 1960s taken by a family enjoying a sunny holiday by the seaside.

The reason I included this film in the vintage home movie archive is because when I played the digitised clip back, just after I’d scanned it, it seemed so colourful and well detailed that I had to add it. I suspect this is because at the time it was taken the weather was good and the bright sunlight allowed the photographer to get the best out of both the film and their camera.

Just to get the information about the film itself covered, it is a Kodachrome, standard 8 film which came in the standard yellow and grey reel. The only information on the actual film is the word ‘KEN’ written in biro on the yellow film cover. I assume this refers to the name of one of the family members shown or possibly the photographer.

My detective work to try to find the location of this film had been completely unsuccessful until I saw the very last few seconds of the film which feature a Hovertravel hovercraft moving down a concrete slipway and into the sea. This makes me wonder if this could have been filmed on the Isle of Wight? That is the only seaside location I can think of which regularly had a hovercraft service.

Now to the contents of the film. It shows a family who are enjoying a holiday by the seaside. There are scenes of them walking along the cliff tops and on the beach and then some considerable time in a swimming pool. The pool looks sparsely populated which suggests it may have been for their exclusive use, but I noticed caravans in the background behind the pool, so it may have been in a public holiday site and the filming took place at a less than popular time.

As I mentioned above, the film finishes with a few seconds showing the Hovercraft departing from the beach and I can clearly see the word ‘Hovertravel’ written on the side of the vessel. If anyone knows anywhere else that Hovertravel operated in the UK in the 1960s, please let me know in the comments below.