The Archive Would Like Your Videos

We all have them – short videos taken with old movie cameras or old camcorders, but if you have the opportunity to transfer them to digital format, they could be shown with an article on this website.

I am no photographer, but to show you what I mean, view the video in this article that I just took with my cheap compact camera in January 2015 with some shots of Hadleigh High Street from St James to the Old Fire Station. We may all know what it looks like now, but just think if we could compare this with footage from the 1960s or even earlier.

If you would be happy to share such short digital clips from your home movies with the Archive, you could submit them yourself directly (if under 20MB) or send them into the Archive for the editors to put a sample on the website under your name.

We would love old videos showing the businesses that have moved on from Hadleigh High Street or Thundersley village over the years or perhaps some video of a family wedding showing Hadleigh or Thundersley churches. How about an event in the old Public Hall?

One day, we would like to be able to convert your old video films and tapes for you, but this can cost several hundred pounds per film and money would have to be specially raised for such a project.  However, if you have some old films you wish to donate and have conserved, there are two larger archives which may be able to assist.

The East Anglian Film archive may be contacted at www.eafa.org.uk. It’s not known whether or not they are still collecting, but they seem to be the right place for local films to be deposited and there appears to be a shortage of South Essex films on their archive.

However, if you have any footage showing any London Borough, then “London’s Screen Archives”, the network of London organisations looking after heritage film run by Film London,would love to hear from you. See their website at www.londonscreenarchives.org.uk which, if you search for Canvey for example, will enable you to see film footage of Canvey seafront in the late 1960s and early 70s when a London estate made their annual coach trips to the seaside.

And as London occupiers have records of London, local residents in our area may have home movies of London which London’s Screen Archives would love to discuss with you.

Unfortunately, old films from the 1890s up to the time when videos came into play are on film which is even now not always recoverable through deterioration. However, if it’s not done soon, they will decay too much and never be seen again. Apparently, even video tape can deteriorate beyond useful life within 15 years! (I must get my old home videos digitised before I lose them forever).

If suitable for their needs, Film London can raise funds to have your family movies preserved for posterity and give you a dvd copy to keep yourself.

This article has been submitted on behalf of the Editors of the Hadleigh & Thundersley Community Archive who can be contacted at admin@hadleighhistory.org.uk