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The
Stewkley Film Archive was founded
in 2008 when the collection of
films shot by village filmmmaker
Tony Greenslade needed a home.
Tony died in 2005, just short of
his 79th birthday. Over a period
of 35 years he had put his cine
camera to good use recording
pictures and sound at a whole
range of village events and
activities.
When the
campaign against the proposal to
demolish the village and evict
its inhabitants to make way for
an airport came along at the end
of 1970, Tony saw an opportunity.
His film of that campaign is a
valuable record of the period and
clips from it have featured since
on television, firstly on Anglia
Television in 1995, and more
recently, licensed by the
Stewkley Film Archive, on BBC
4.
It was
lucky for Stewkley that it had a
villager to take on the task of
putting a motion footage archive
together -- someone who had a
 little
experience to help. Between 1988
and 1991, John Flewin
(pictured),
a former television journalist,
was Head of the ITN Archive, one
of the most complete tv news
collections in the world. After
retiring early from ITN, in 1995,
he became a consultant in the
commercial footage world, with
clients in the UK, Europe and
North America.
In
retirement, once established in
the role of village film
archivist, Flewin set about
seeking out more films, initially
looking for additional footage to
pull together as complete a
record as possible of the Third
London Airport campaign. To date
valuable footage has been
sourced, the first and most
extensive film and slides from
cameras of the late Jerry
Smith-Cresswell who was one of
the campaign organisers and lived
in the nearby village of Drayton
Parslow. Another airport film was
added a little later, this time
shot by Bernard Osborn, a
cameraman living in another
nearby village, this time
Cublington. A more recent
acquisition has been film taken
by the late Jean Bell, at the
time of the campaign a resident
of Aylesbury.
Plans now
involve finding and acquiring
more moving footage, both film
and video, which depict events,
happenings and a way of life now
gone.
The mission
of the Archive is to digitally
copy for preservation and editing
purposes as much important
material as possible, then make
it available locally for viewing
in various formats for education,
enjoyment and
entertainment.
The first
public showing of the airport
material was in March when a
two-hour audio-visual
presentation played to a packed
Village Hall on two consecutive
evenings. Later presentations
took place in Drayton Parslow and
Cublington. To date a total in
excess of 500 have
attended.
Now the
first DVD has beenlaunched, again
featuring the Third London
Airport Campaign
(see
details).
In addition to the work of the
three local cameramen, material
has been acquired from th East
Anglia Film Archive and from the
BBC.
Audio-visual
presentations and DVDs featuring
non-airport footage are slotted
for 2010. Stewkley School's May
Days, pram races, fetes,
celebrations and more are all
presently being viewed and edited
... and more material is being
sought.
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