Film clip of Queen in Bradford in 1954 (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Film clip of Queen in Bradford in 1954

9:50am Monday 28th May 2012 in Remember When? By Emma Clayton, Leisure and Lifestyle Editor

To mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Yorkshire Film Archive has brought together 60 diamond years of film from its collections in a right royal compilation.

Called Yorkshire Celebrates, it brings together 60 diamond years of film to help get Diamond Jubilee parties started.

The commemorative three-minute film features preparations and celebrations in the region for the 1953 Coronation, 1977 Silver Jubilee festivities, and visits by the Queen to Yorkshire over the last six decades, to locations including Bradford, Leeds, Dewsbury, Wakefield, Pickering, and York.

Graham Relton, Yorkshire Film Archive manager, said: “We all get out our cameras for special occasions, and there are none more special than a royal celebration, whether it’s a formal visit, or the fun of a local street party with bunting, Union Jack hats and a new take on the potted meat sandwiches that marked the coronation in 1953, or the many visits by the Queen to Yorkshire over the years.

The Yorkshire Celebrates DVD brings all these collective memories together.”

Based at York St John University, the Yorkshire Film Archive finds, preserves and provides public access to moving images made in or about the region, mostly amateur footage of life over the 20th century.

Its growing collections currently contain more than 18,000 titles, ranging from films made by the early film pioneers of the late 1890s, to recent footage of changing landscapes and life in Yorkshire.

Each week, 60 seconds of archive film footage is added to its online calendar, which includes amateur footage of the Queen’s visit to Bradford in 1954, a snow-covered Lister Park in 1913, and a scene from Billy Liar being shot on a Bradford street.

In the footage of the visit by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to Bradford in October 1954, the royal couple are shown being greeted by the-then Lord Mayor of Bradford, Alderman White, in front of the Town Hall, and receiving a rapturous welcome from 20,000 schoolchildren at Park Avenue cricket ground.

The Royals were driven through streets lined with flag-waving crowds, and visited Joseph Cawthra and Co, a textile company on Wakefield Road.

* Yorkshire Celebrates – 60 Diamond Years Of Film, is available from the Yorkshire Film Archive on (01904) 876550, by e-mailing yfa@yorksj.ac.uk or at yorkshirefilmarchive.com.