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The Home Movie Road Show


DaveH

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Most of the privately owned houses have done away with the wooden wind breakers now because they were such a pain in the a**e to maintain.

I seem to remember even in the 1970's that painted wooden screen was otherwise untreated wood, - not tanilised or creosoted or anything like that. Even then they expanded and contracted with changes in temperature and humidity causing them to crack or split. In wet weather they absorbed so much water they became sponge like and frequently suffered from a variety of mould and other fungal infections.

So yes, they were murder to maintain and at that time it should have been a council job.

However, my dad was a painter & decorator and sorted this sort thing out for my grandad himself.

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Did you ever notice the design cock-up regarding the positioning of the "separating wall"? The black soil pipe and 2" dia. drain by the front door actually belong to the house next door

That's probably because, as you look at the houses from the path in the example given in the film.

Grandads front door is on the left, but the house to the left of him has its bathroom and toilet upstairs to its right so the plumbing must go between the 2 properties somewhere.

Likewise my grandads house pipes must also go beyond his property onto the next house to the right.

Thats all very well until you get to the last house on the right on each block. Where does their pipe go?

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...the house next door (No.1) :rolleyes:

Just remembered Markbaby,

You only lived a few yards up the hill from this exact film location.

Yes it's No.3 Morland Road, and as I recall from the "Those Gleadless Pictures" topic you lived just3 or 4 blocks up on Morland Close.

Bet you never thought that an amateur film showing your estate made by 2 teenage lads would ever appear on BBC television. ;-)

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Bet you never thought that an amateur film showing your estate made by 2 teenage lads would ever appear on BBC television. ;-)

You're right there Dave. I just caught it one night and thought "Nah, can't be"! So I downloaded it from the net and there it was!

It took a little while for me to work out which block it was filmed on.

The numbering on the estate is VERY confusing.

I remember the summer of '76. It was the year I was taking my C.S.E.'s and G.C.E.'s. Very hot! There was a water shortage on and for years after there was a sticker still on my cassette case saying "Save water, bath with a friend"!

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It took a little while for me to work out which block it was filmed on.

The numbering on the estate is VERY confusing.

The first block runs the full length (10 houses) of Raeburn Road between Morland Road and Leighton Road.

The next block back has the first (1-9) of Morland Road and some high numbers (80's or 90's) of Leighton Road

It is this block that the film was made on.

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I remember the summer of '76. It was the year I was taking my C.S.E.'s and G.C.E.'s.

Hey, now brother Paul who was the star of the film was born in 1961 and took his CSE's and O-levels at round about that time, probably a year later in 1977 as I think he was 15 when he made the film.

Unfortunately you probably don't know him as although we visited my grandparents and often "stopped over" with them for entire weekends or even weeks in the school holidays (they were an elderly couple and had a 3 bedroomed council house after all) we lived on the Arbourthorne and both went to Norfolk School, - as did his other friends who were "stars" in this film.

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In 1981 when my brother Paul was 20, inspired by my work with film and photography, his appearance in "Mr. Big" and the Norfolk School film "Dead Easy" he bought his own Super 8mm cine camera and made his own film at exactly the same location.

His film called "Joy Rider", filmed in colour but silent, featured his friend Nigel Morris and both his and Nigels current girlfriends along with my brothers Honda CB200 motorbike.

In this film 2 bikers ride up Raeburn Road turn onto Morland Road and park up at the end of grandads block. The bikers dismount and go off to the houses on Raeburn Road but unfortunately leave the key in the ignition. Nigel comes walking past, notices the keys and tries to nick the bike but he has great difficulty with the kick start getting the engine to start. At this point the 2 bikers return and catch him in the act. The 2 bikers threaten him and order him off the bike. For the first time in the film the 2 bikers remove their crash helmets and reveal that they are girls. Nigel is not to be threatened by 2 girls so continues, laughing, to attempt to steal their bike. At this point the 2 girls set about him and beat him up. As the badly beaten Nigel limps away after a good kicking the 2 girls put their helmets back on, get on the bike, which now starts first kick and drive off up Morland Road out of shot to the end credits.

I have a low quality (filmed from a projection screen with autofocus problems) digital version of this film, a bit like the version of Mr. Big in post #14 , However, with my brothers permission and a suitable amount of web space I will post it up.

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I'd love to see it Dave!

Good luck with uploading it somewhere. What about 4shared? Or is the file too big?

I don't know yet.

The BBC version of "Mr. Big" is currently in my own ISP web space, which I used to use as the Sheffield Steam Society website.

But with only 55Mb of webspace that is a tight fit.

The other version of Mr. Big (with the soundtrack) was uploaded to YouTube by my brother.

My brother still does a fair bit of "fun" stuff and special effects with film (all digital now of course) and has his own section on YouTube.

Some of his more recent works can be seen here

VanHiggy YouTube Channel

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We have just been paid by the BBC for the showing of our film on TV.

It was a bit like sending a funny video clip in to Harry Hill for "You've Been Framed"

They paid us £250

Still, £125 each for a film we made years ago just for a bit of fun to amuse ourselves isn't bad is it?

As my brother said when he got the money "That makes it the most successful film we have made. lol

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In order to get more video links to my own webspace I have had to remove the original link in post#14, compress the file and convert it .wmv format.

OK, so it's reduced the picture quality, it's gone a bit blocky and the action is now a bit jerky but at least it is still viewable and the story and subtitles can be followed.

As a bonus it now opens in Windows Media player or RealPlayer rather than Apple Quicktime.

Dr. Dave and Mr. Big

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Here is my brothers film "Joy Rider" as described in post#32.

Colour and silent (apart from the projector noise) picture quality is low due to filming from the screen and problems with autofocus being fooled.

This is a 3gp video file, as used on mobile phones. On my computer, after download it automatically opened in RealPlayer but it would require a player capable of handling 3gp files to work.

Joy Rider

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So now there are 2 amateur films made on the Herdings, only 1 shown on the BBC but both available on Sheffield History.

Enjoy the show, don't forget your gallon of fizzy pop and 2 gallon bucket of popcorn while you watch them.

The usherette will come around between the films with ice cream and other refreshments. lol

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Here is my brothers film "Joy Rider" as described in post#32.

Colour and silent (apart from the projector noise) picture quality is low due to filming from the screen and problems with autofocus being fooled.

This is a 3gp video file, as used on mobile phones. On my computer, after download it automatically opened in RealPlayer but it would require a player capable of handling 3gp files to work.

Joy Rider

No shooting stills were taken for "Joy Rider" but here are the locations as they are today

OPENING SCENE

Bike drives along Raeburn Road towards Leighton Road, turns up Morland and parks up.

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MORLAND ROAD

The bike is parked up on Morland at the end of the block where grandad used to live.

All the action including Nigel's attempt to steal the bike and him being beaten up by the 2 girl bikers takes place here.

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ELECTRICITY SUBSTATION

The 2 bikers go to an undisclosed address on Raeburn Road by walking behind, and re-emerging from, the electrical substation on the corner of Raeburn and Morland Roads

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CLOSING SCENE

When the bike is finally driven away it continues up Morland Road past its junction with Morland Close.

A location I am sure Markbaby will know well

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On some blocks owners have built their property outwards to the path using this wall as part of their property extension.

Examples of property extensions up to the limits of that dividing wall

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In 1976 all the houses were council properties and all had that white painted wooden fencing across half the house frontage to divide the back and front doors and to hide the dustbin behind (or your motobike)

Today most of these houses appear to be owner occupied and most of them have removed the fencing. Any remaining now appear to have been painted dark green by the council.

Examples of properties which have retained their full height dividing wooden screen fencing.

These have been repainted by the council in a dark green, almost a military colour which is not as pleasing as the original white.

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Examples of properties which have retained their full height dividing wooden screen fencing.

These have been repainted by the council in a dark green, almost a military colour which is not as pleasing as the original white.

I could only find 1 property on the whole estate which had preserved the original white painted fence.

Well done that man! It's great that someone wants to preserve a 1950's original feature and not try to "modernise" it too much.

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I could only find 1 property on the whole estate which had preserved the original white painted fence.

Well done that man! It's great that someone wants to preserve a 1950's original feature and not try to "modernise" it too much.

Talking of preservation...

I even spotted on the estate a VERTICALLY POLARISED VHF BAND III television aerial.

VHF BAND III had channels 7 to 13 of 13 used by ITV for 405 line black and white television in the days when they only had 1 channel, even though it was regional. (Channels 1 to 6 were BAND I and were used by the BBC for the same purpose. VHF BAND II is the 88MHz to 108 MHz FM Radio broadcast band which is used to this day, although when DAB radio is introduced possibly not for much longer)

Essentially aerials like this were obsolete by the 1970's but it's nice to still see one still attached to the outside of a building.

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Talking of preservation...

I even spotted on the estate a VERTICALLY POLARISED VHF BAND III television aerial.

VHF BAND III had channels 7 to 13 of 13 used by ITV for 405 line black and white television in the days when they only had 1 channel, even though it was regional. (Channels 1 to 6 were BAND I and were used by the BBC for the same purpose. VHF BAND II is the 88MHz to 108 MHz FM Radio broadcast band which is used to this day, although when DAB radio is introduced possibly not for much longer)

Essentially aerials like this were obsolete by the 1970's but it's nice to still see one still attached to the outside of a building.

Another nice feature which has gone is those original sodium vapour street lamps.

One can be seen in this picture above the front door of the second house.

The original ones were round and seemed to be fitted into a circular concrete surround. There were only 1 or 2 of them on each block to light up that otherwise dark footpath. My grandad had one outside his house fitted, like in the picture, to his house above the front door.

Sodium vapour lamps, now common almost everywhere and immediately recognisable by that golden yellow light were a new thing in the 1950's when these houses were built. At the time most of Sheffield was lit up by street lamps with ordinary tungsten fillament bulbs which lit up white just like a domestic bulb.

These were also automatic lights, powered by a light sensor they came on automatically at dusk. Sometimes they stayed on all night and went out at dawn, but sometimes they were switched off late at night when there was no-one about to save power.

What was unusual about the early sodium lamps was the length of time they took to warm up, - about 15 to 20 minutes. The bulbs contained both neon and sodium. When first switched on the neon lit up red. As the bulb warmed up the sodium started to vapourise and gradually the colour changed to that golden yellow orange colour characteristic of the atomic emmission spectral lines of sodium. Modern variants warm much more quickly and so do not have that nice change to them.

As kids my grandparents would let us play out "until it goes dark". Once that light came on with its neon red we knew we had about quarter of an hour to get back home. If we were early we would stand about talking in the dimming daylight under grandads light until it went yellow knowing that we would be home "before it goes dark"

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I could only find 1 property on the whole estate which had preserved the original white painted fence.

Well done that man! It's great that someone wants to preserve a 1950's original feature and not try to "modernise" it too much.

That looks like no.23 Morland Close. If it is, it's the only one on that block that's still a council owned property.

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Here is my brothers film "Joy Rider" as described in post#32.

Colour and silent (apart from the projector noise) picture quality is low due to filming from the screen and problems with autofocus being fooled.

This is a 3gp video file, as used on mobile phones. On my computer, after download it automatically opened in RealPlayer but it would require a player capable of handling 3gp files to work.

Joy Rider

Thank you for the upload Dave! I enjoyed watching it! (vlc player handles the file OK)

I remember that orange Volkswagen Beetle!, I'm sure it belonged to Mr & Mrs Lindsay who lived in the end house where it is parked.

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That looks like no.23 Morland Close. If it is, it's the only one on that block that's still a council owned property.

I think it is 23 Morland Close Markbaby.

It may be the only one on that block, but it could be the only one on the estate. I didn't see any more.

Not only have some of the original fences been painted green a lot of them seem to have been lowered so that instead of being 6 feet tall (a screen) they are only about half that height ( a garden fence property boundary marker.

Removing the fence is not as easy as it may appear. I seem to remember they are held up by 2 very substantial metal girder like supports which go into the ground.

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