IN 2004 a box of old films was discovered by a builder in the basement of a South London house.

It later emerged that the contents were the ‘lost’ films of the British Deaf Association; a collection of rare material capturing the deaf community and British Sign Language (BSL) from 1931 to 1939.

In 2007 a selection of the films were broadcast in a BBC SeeHear programme about Leslie Edwards, who founded the British Deaf Association (BDA) film archive. His vision was to preserve, through film, the social history of the deaf rights movement and BSL.

The TV programme triggered a huge response among deaf people, many of whom had never seen such material before, and the BDA set about bringing its entire film and video collection back to life. With Heritage Lottery funding, footage from the 1930s onwards was digitalised, creating a valuable record the UK's deaf heritage.

Some of the rare footage was taken in Yorkshire. It includes deaf cricket players in a Yorkshire vs Lancashire match in the early 1930s, with sheep invading the pitch. Yorkshire has lost but is warned: ‘Next time we will beat you!’

Footage of the former theme park at Golden Acre Park in Bramhope shows visitors boating on a lake, and a wedding takes place in Bradford city centre.

Now the archive footage features in a documentary, Power In Our Hands, being screened at venues nationwide to mark the 125th anniversary of the British Deaf Association (BDA), founded in Leeds in 1890. The first screening in the North is in Bradford.

This landmark documentary contains films available to the public for the first time, exploring the history of Britain's deaf community, largely hidden from the wider world until now. Tracing the evolving deaf communities, language and culture, it also includes contemporary interviews.

"Leslie Edwards realised early on what film could mean to the deaf community," says project manager Jemma Buckley. "Music and theatre were off limits but when film arrived for mass public consumption Edwards, who was deaf, saw another use for this medium - communication. Unable to use the radio or telephone, many deaf people found it difficult to receive information from beyond their immediate locality and were cut off from the wider, national deaf community.

"Edwards created the BDA Film Library where he built up a collection of newsreels, many delivered by himself, in BSL, to camera, providing information about events around the country. He would take a camera to deaf events, such as sports matches and congress gatherings, record footage, and this would be taken to deaf clubs across the country and overseas, to events such as the Deaf Olympics.

"There are more than 500 videos in total. We knew there was footage from the 1930s, but it was lost to us."

Adds Jemma: "The process of gathering stories and memories about the events in this rare footage has really brought our archive alive. British Sign Language can't be recorded in any other way than film - it can't be fully captured written down or photographed - so this is the only way it can be preserved for future generations.

"In 'hearing films' from the silent era we don't know what's being said, but with these films we can tell what people are saying, through BSL. Most are subtitled for the wider community to enjoy." ”

The documentary includes interviews with people linked to the film material. "Many are in it themselves, or have family members," says Jemma: "We took it out on a 10-month roadshow and viewers identified 479 people in these clips, many across Yorkshire."

The footage goes from 1931 to 2003, with most of it from the 1930s -1970s.

"As it moves into the 60s there's a growing sense of deaf empowerment," says Jemma. "The black power movement in America was an inspiration for the deaf community's own civil rights campaign.

She adds: "Deaf people don't have the same access to their heritage as other people do. This is the first time they've been able to view old film and see BSL develop over the years, from a time when people were labelled 'deaf and dumb'. BSL wasn't recognised as a language until 2003, following a long campaign. These films are very moving for a lot of deaf people - that's the feedback we've had from screenings."

The footage is essential viewing, not just for deaf people but for anyone interested in social history, political activism or civil rights development.

"It's incredibly important that the hearing world sees this footage too," says Jemma.

Dr Terry Riley, chairman of the British Deaf Association said: “To see this old film footage is an emotional occasion for me. For many years I never really knew or saw my language on screen, so to be able to sit down and see BSL on a par with any other language is a wonderful thing.

"To watch a bygone era - one I thought was lost forever to the world - is magical. Clips like the old missionaries, with fingers dancing up and down like lightening, and deaf people really enjoying life, dancing in the street - what joyous years they were. This film will give the deaf community a feeling of history and sense of pride, knowing BSL has been around for hundreds of years.”

Rachel Hasted of the Heritage Lottery Fund added: “Power in our Hands is an inspiring documentary which captures the stories of those who have lived through a period of significant change."

In addition to Power In Our Hands, the BDA has produced teaching resources for deaf and mainstream schools. The documentary forms part of SHARE: The Deaf Visual Archive, a larger BDA project comprising more than 15,000 photographs and films on its website, sharedeafarchive.org.

Users can view old photographs and footage as well as upload their own videos or images.

"This opens up the resource to the national and international deaf community, which is key to uniting deaf organisations across the world and providing a platform for them to collate footage. A few deaf clubs have started uploading pictures and footage, it's an ongoing project," says Jemma.

"Older people have come forward with old reels they've found at home. We want funding to continue so we can digitalise and preserve it."

* Power in Our Hands will be screened at PictureHouse, Bradford, on Sunday, February 21 at 6pm, followed by a question-and-answer session with BDA representatives. To book tickets visit picturehouses.com