A day in the life of Newcastle city centre, its street scenes and architecture, is captured in this amateur film portrait made by an early member of Newcastle Amateur Cinematographers Association, S J Rosslyn Smith.
People travel into the city en masse and hurriedly make their way to work in this clip of a typical Newcastle rush hour in the 1940s.
Look out for Haymarket Bus Station, Cook’s Corner, Blackett Street, and Newcastle Central Station as places still recognisable in the footage.
This film is newly digitised and hasn’t been seen since the 1940s.
It is part of the fantastic collection of Newcastle Amateur Cinematographers Association held at North East Film Archive (NEFA).
The film segment, which was titled A City Symphony when it was made, is the latest in our regular CineSecrets series run in conjunction with NEFA.
In these film clips, we have been recalling people, places and events from Tyneside history via footage released from the archive’s collections.
CineSecrets is a regionwide initiative from NEFA, and features just a small selection of the films collected and preserved in the archive’s temperature-controlled vaults. It’s part of the major project, North East On Film, which is re-connecting the people and communities of the region with their film heritage through special screenings, events and online collections.
CineSecrets has been specially curated with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
To find out more about #NorthEastonFilm visit: www.northeastonfilm.com
