PAGEANT OF YOUTH, KINGSTON UPON HULL V.E. DAY (1945) film no: 16
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Made by Debenham & Co. of Beverley, this Pathe newsreel documents a children’s pageant in Hull. It includes scenes of the large procession celebrating the day as well as the Mayor and Mayoress who visit the children’s ward at the City Hospital.
The film opens with a huge procession of children in fancy dress. The procession passes large crowds of people as well as the Mayor and Mayoress of Hull. The commentary tells of how mothers used discarded material to make the costumes in the difficult times of war rationing. The procession includes the Hessle Orphanage Home Band and students from Maris College. All the floats and costumes are skilfully made and decorated for the occasion.
The Mayor and Mayoress visit the City Hospital where children wave flags in the decorated wards. Presents and toys are handed out to the children in the wards, and more children play with the nurses outside the hospital.
An exterior view shows a local sanatorium which cares for many people suffering with tuberculosis. Some patients sit out in the sunshine whilst others sit in decorated wards. The Sheriff of Hull visits the Victoria Children’s Hospital. The film closes with a soldier who is on leave and visiting a sick child at the hospital.
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This is one of a number of films that the YFA has that were made by Debenhams and Co. of Beverley. Another film made by Debenhams of Hull, from a few years earlier in 1941, is King George And Queen Visit Hull. The Context for this film has more information on Debenhams and their founder Ernest Symmons. It is also one of number of films that show the celebrations that followed the end of World War Two. In fact Debenhams filmed the whole of the celebrations in Hull, and these can be seen on another film held with YFA, Hull Victory Celebrations. Other places where the celebrations were filmed include, Bradford, Sheffield, Pontefract and Harrogate. The film brings together not only the pageant, but also a snapshot of caring institutions in Hull in 1945.
The film has something of the feel of British Pathe newsreels of the time, although, judging by their online Archive, they only once covered V E Day outside London. In other respects too it appears to differ from their practice: almost all the British Pathe films of that time concern the war. The voiceover may sound familiar also to those of an older generation, although he too adopts a more jaunty tone to that of the regular voiceover for British Pathe at that time, Bob Walker (later Danvers-Walker).
The Oxford English Dictionary provides one definition of a pageant as being, ‘a procession or parade with elaborate spectacular display; a showy parade.’ Originally it was a play in a medieval mystery cycle or an act or scene in such a play – Robert Withington traces it back to the London Lord Mayor’s Show in the thirteenth century. What the processional form shares with the stage form of the pageant is the telling of a story, the use of historical characters and its often ceremonial function. In Britain the large variety of processional occasions, such as carnivals, share these features, which are also evident in this film – in the U.S. a pageant is almost always used for a beauty contest. The large range of historical costumes, and the uniforms of World War Two service men and women, worn by the children, suggests that the procession is serving a dual function of placing the war into a historical narrative, and binding the community together in this story.
The pageant is most probably shot in Ferensway – older viewers may well recognise the buildings. Hull got very heavily bombed during the Second World War, the second most bombed city in Britain after London. It has been estimated that in total over 90% of the city was damaged by bombing – for more on this see the Context for King and Queen Visit Hull. As a result the city centre was dramatically redeveloped and some of the buildings seen in the film did not survive – see Gavin Stamp in References. Not only buildings but also many institutions have passed away since 1945, including most of those seen in the film.
The film shows the band of the Hesslewood Orphanage Home, which was another Hull home for orphaned children of sailors. The other is the Hull Seamen's and General Orphan Society was established at Spring Bank in 1865. The YFA has many films of the latter, some of which can be seen online. The Hesslewood Orphanage Home was greatly helped by large donations from the Wilson family, who owned a very successful and world renowned shipping company – see the Context for Seaway to Europe (1972). They also granted the land for it to move to Hesslewood Hall in 1921, a large country house which could accommodate more children. However, fund raising was a continual problem, and the orphanage closed in 1985 (records of the Society are held at Hull City Archives). See the Context for Seamen's Reunion (1936) and A Family Affair (1960), for more background on sailor’s orphans.
Marist College too no longer exists, merging with St Mary's High School in 1988. It was founded in 1925 as one of many schools of the Maris Brothers Catholic religious order which originated in France in 1817.
So too with Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, which closed in 1967. A number of hospitals for sick children were founded in the nineteenth century, beginning with the one at Great Ormond Street which was founded by Dr Charles West in 1952 – having the seemingly redundant adjective ‘Sick’ in the name was not unusual in hospitals from this period. It was established in Storey Street, near the Boulevard in Hull, in 1873 before moving to Park Street in 1891. It is described by Bulmer's Gazetteer in 1892 as, ‘a handsome structure, in the Gothic style of architecture - of the early French character - executed in red bricks and Ancaster stone dressings.’
The patients in the Sanatorium can be seen in the film sat outside in their beds, which might call for some explanation. This goes back to the late 1840s when a botany student from Silesia, Hermann Brehmer, who was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) – formerly called ‘consumption’. He took himself off to the Himalayas to study and returned cured, believing that being outdoors helped in his recovery. He subsequently learnt medicine and opened the first sanatorium in Görbersdorf (then part of Prussia, and since 1945 in Poland). The idea spread and many sanatoriums were built, designed to isolate the sick, allow for the taking of plenty of fresh air and ensure a proper diet – Thomas Mann provides a vivid portrait of just such a sanatorium in The Magic Mountain. Note that sanatorium is sometimes spelt in the older form of sanitarium – denoting health resorts in general – but the newer spelling is usually used specifically for TB hospitals.
Originally a hospital for infectious diseases was built in Hedon Road, Hull, in 1885, before moving to new buildings in 1928 on the grounds of a manor house called Cottingham Castle, in Cottingham, a village on the outskirts of Hull. Both the City Hospital and the Sanatorium were located separately at the same site in Castle Hill (the Sanatorium having three wards on the east side) They have since been joined together as Castle Hill Hospital. Despite recent major redevelopment, the building that can be seen in the film as ‘City Hospital’ remains in use serving as offices.
In fact it was during the Second World War that the first steps were taken towards a chemotherapy treatment and developments in drugs, and in 1956 it was shown that being treated at home was just as effective as being treated in a sanatorium, without it being passed on to family members. During the 1950s, when there were 50,000 cases of TB each year in Britain,the BCG vaccine was introduced in schools – reducing the numbers to an average of just 7,000 per year over the last 15 years (although worldwide it remains a major disease killing an estimated two million; a figure that according to WHO could drastically increase).
References
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, Translated by John E. Woods, Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 1995.
Gavin Stamp, Britain’s Lost Cities, Aurum Press, London, 2007.
Robert Withington, English Pageantry, An Historical Outline, Oxford University Press, 1920
Bulmer's Gazetteer History of Hull at
T. Bulmer, History, topography, and directory of East Yorkshire (with Hull) [Bulmer's directory of East Yorkshire], Mr Pye Books, 1985 (1892) – this can be found in Hull Local Studies, or online
K. J. Allison (editor), A History of the County of York East Riding: Volume 1 - The City of Kingston upon Hull, Institute of Historical Research, Oxford,1969. This can be viewed online
Further Information
J.D. Hicks, Our Orphans: the story of the Hull Seamen's and General Orphanage, 1853-1979, Lockington Publishing Company, North Ferriby, 1983.
Duration:
9 mins 49 secs |
 16mm |
 Combined Optical |
 Black & White |
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