Youth Hostelling: The First 100 Years


Youth Hostelling: The First 100 Years

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Transcript


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This is the story of how one of the most influential youth movements of

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all time used film to open up the countryside to the masses.

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For generations, the promotional films of the Youth Hostel Association

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have encouraged millions of people to expand their horizons and see the world through fresh eyes.

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Now, after years of lying unseen, the films are being broadcast together for the first time.

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They follow a journey through decades of what it means to be

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young, and as youth hostelling celebrates its first 100 years, show how our relationship with

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the British countryside was changed forever.

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Heading towards the Youth Hostel Association's headquarters in Derbyshire, film archivist

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Binny Baker is about to pick up a collection of vintage films which she's hoping will help shed fresh

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light on an organisation which has given millions of people their first experience of the great outdoors.

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I know by experience that there will be all sorts of surprises hidden within those boxes.

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It's just how many we'll find.

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There'll be some interesting stuff, but it's just how the film's fared over the years.

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Youth Hostelling started in Germany in 1909

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and spread to Britain in the 1930s.

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From the outset, the people behind its progress here quickly understood

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the importance of film in promoting its message.

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The films Binny's come to look at were recently unearthed during an overhaul of the YHA's records.

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-What are we going to find in here?

-All sorts of things.

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She's already viewed some, but today she's joining the association's voluntary archivist,

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John Martin, to assess what other treasures may be hidden here.

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When we've collected the archive here,

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they've come from various different sources,

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and some of the sources are clearly much more complete than others.

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I want to have a look at some of these older ones. Quite often, you can tell just literally

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by the box and the...

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-Tin cans.

-Yeah, look at that one.

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YHA disk reader 9.5.

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Now, 9.5 is one of the earliest film formats that people could use.

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1930s.

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Inside, a handwritten note, which promises to take John and Binny back to the very start.

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Now, this is most interesting, because this is a list of some very

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early Northumberland youth hostels, which presumably are on the film.

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And mentioned is Wallington.

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Now, the history of Wallington is enormously important.

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This very much looks to me like an original because you can see, if you look up at the light there,

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can you see the different colour in film stock?

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There's dark and then there's light, and that's part of the way the film's been exposed.

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Those little gaps there are where they've been spliced together.

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This is going to be an exciting film, because it's not a print,

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it's a camera original, or it's been edited, at least.

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I love the fact that here, in your hand,

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is the history of the YHA in the 20th century. It's just great.

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Before taking the films back to the safety of her temperature controlled

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vaults, Binny's keen to gets John's expert knowledge of this early find.

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So, first time we're actually going to look at some film.

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-Very exciting.

-It is, isn't it?

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It's not in too bad nick, so I'm hoping we're going to get a pretty good picture as we go through.

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What a wonderful piece of apparatus.

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It's great, isn't it?

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There's our first image.

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Yes.

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Looks '30s to me.

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With those uniforms.

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Like a women's keep-fit class, isn't it?

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-Yeah. It's "Freedom YHA".

-Yes.

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Once we take this away and do some proper work on it, the quality will be, I can tell just by

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looking at this, the quality is just going to be fantastic.

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"Northumbrian hostels".

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Now, this'll be interesting.

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What was the significance of the Northumbrian...?

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It was the very first of the YHA's regions.

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The Trevelyans were

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the chief instigators or amongst the chief instigators

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at the very beginning of the association in 1931, '32.

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Among the gems here are shots of early YHA activity at Wallington Hall,

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the home of Sir Charles Trevelyan, an early benefactor

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and the brother of the association's first president.

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Later, emerging from the film, what are thought to be the first moving images of Sir Charles himself.

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And they donated what, money, or their own buildings?

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Yes, part of Wallington Hall became one of the very first youth hostels in the country.

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With access to the countryside far more restricted than it is today,

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it was crucial that the YHA attracted the landed gentry to its cause.

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Amongst the landowners, there were some

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very liberal or socialist leaning landowners like the Trevelyans,

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who were very keen to encourage this kind of activity on their land.

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-This would be an official film.

-Yeah.

-I'm certain of that, and it would be duplicated.

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-There we go.

-Yeah. Very good.

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The concept of youth hostelling flourished as part of a broad liberal movement

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led by rambling and cycling groups, who wanted to get

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the working classes away from polluted urban areas into the great outdoors.

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Once established, it quickly became a cause among both the rich and poor.

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Behind the Youth Hostels Association at the very beginning, there was

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very definitely a lot of serious thought, a lot of financial support.

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Although the YHA in the 1930s was never that well off, it couldn't have got where it got to

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having, within five years, over 200 hostels, without a great deal of

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support by well-meaning people who could afford to do that.

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As Binny takes the rolls of film back to her base in Yorkshire

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for preservation, she's excited by the secrets they may contain.

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We've got the history of the Youth Hostel Association

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over at least seven decades, so that is really exciting.

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I was optimistic at the beginning of this sort of archive hunt

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that we would have a nationally significant collection.

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I think the more we look, the more we'll find.

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The early snapshot of hostelling in Northumberland is dwarfed by

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the discovery of the YHA's first film aimed at boosting recruitment.

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In 1933, two years after the first hostels were opened in Britain,

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the association was already striving to assert itself on an ambitious scale.

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It set out its manifesto in a drama called Youth Hails Adventure.

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The film, which would have been shown in church and village halls, advertises the YHA's aims

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of bringing the classes and sexes together in a new apolitical but democratic movement.

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For John Walton, professor of Social History at Leeds Metropolitan University,

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the film represents an early example of liberal propaganda.

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The crucial point about this film is that it's made in the early 1930s, really at just about the lowest

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point of the great industrial depression that really begins in 1929.

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There's a fear of revolution. There's a fear of communism.

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All this is designed to make people feel comforted and contented with their lot.

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It's designed to defuse tensions, and prevent class conflict from developing.

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I think it's very impressive that they use film,

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although it's worth noticing that it's not a talkie.

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Talkies were available by 1933 but they don't actually use them.

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It is something exciting and new.

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It's a new opportunity to show

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spontaneity in all sorts of ways,

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and what's particularly interesting is that they do have the resources to do it.

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Each character in Youth Hails Adventure is carefully chosen

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for what they represent of the social structure of the time.

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And film was the perfect way of getting this message across,

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as a medium which was spreading fast among all socio-economic groups.

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It's really featuring the workers of a big London firm,

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wanting to escape on holiday.

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The youth hosteller is being quite evangelical about the YHA to the boss's son,

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who is quite drawn towards the idea of the YHA, but at the same time needs to be won over.

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But he's doomed, anyway, to go off on holiday

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with his father.

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Despite the film's ambitious scale, there are still some tell-tale signs

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that they were working to a limited budget.

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A lot of the sets are outside, and you can tell that because the wind blows through the set.

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That's a great example of frugal film-making at that time.

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They probably couldn't afford a big, indoor set that was lit, so the alternative,

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to get the lighting right for the film, was to use an outdoor set.

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So you wait for a good day, and then you shoot it outside.

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The film questions the value of the typical seaside resorts of the era,

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showing these as less fun than the YHA's dynamic new holiday movement.

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Well, what we have here is the boss's son being bored at the Grand Hotel, sitting out quite comfortably

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having breakfast, but really wishing he was somewhere else.

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And you can see the idea dawning upon him that it would be really nice to go and join his friends

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at the youth hostel, so here he is writing his letter of application.

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You actually have to get your YHA card.

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You have to be a defined member of the organisation.

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So there is some kind of mystical rite of passage about joining the YHA.

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Also central to the film was the promotion of female emancipation.

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The bicycle was a great agent of women's liberation from the 1890s onwards.

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We see them frequently riding in mixed parties, but again,

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innocently, in this friendly, comradely sort of way.

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Sexual contact is certainly not what the YHA thinks they should be interested in.

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What they should be doing is forming healthy relationships that might

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lead to marriage, while being very well-behaved in the meantime.

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While the film was intended to have universal appeal, some of the imagery was surprisingly daring.

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The scenes of nudity are completely unexpected.

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I'm absolutely astounded that this might have been shown without being cut.

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In the 1930s, there is an increasingly relaxed attitude to

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the display of parts of the body that had hitherto been hidden,

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but this means legs and arms, it means open-necked shirts, and it means not wearing hats.

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It does not mean mooning!

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With all the characters eventually joining together to build a new hostel, including the initially

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sceptical factory owners, the film acts as a recruiting tool right across the class divide.

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Of course, this is showing people how they can make a practical contribution

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to the development of this virtuous new organisation.

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Some of the most dramatic images from the early YHA films are of mountaineering.

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Traditionally a rich man's pastime, by the 1930s and '40s, climbing was becoming a more democratic sport,

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and the YHA was keen to show itself helping to make it accessible to all.

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But first they had to overcome the difficulty of capturing film in such potentially dangerous locations.

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Today, mountaineering cameraman Ian Burton, who worked with Griff Rhys Jones

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on the BBC series, Mountain, is hoping to find out how they did it.

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Used to scrambling up mountains with the lightest of modern equipment, today is going to be different.

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Joining Ian at the Cow and Calf rocks in Yorkshire is film historian John Adderley, who's brought

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the kind of 16 millimetre camera the YHA pioneers would have used.

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This is a Cine-Kodak Special.

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This is a very popular camera in the '30s and '40s, I believe.

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There's no auto focus.

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There's no auto iris.

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It's wind-up, so you've got to make sure you've got plenty of wind for the shot you want to take.

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You don't want to press the button and find you've got five seconds of wind left.

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Before Ian begins his climb, the two men assess the original cameraman's handiwork.

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Oh, wow. You can see the climbing gear is absolutely horrendous.

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It's just a piece of rope tied around his waist. You wouldn't ever want to hang off that.

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The footage may look dramatic, but Ian's not convinced

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the cameraman is taking as much of a risk as the climbers.

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By looking at this, there, for example, it doesn't give you any idea where it is.

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It could be only ten feet off the ground, very easy to get to,

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but still, in those days, it'd look amazing.

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With John's expert advice, Ian is given a quick lesson in how to use the vintage camera.

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Oh, my word, it's heavy.

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You look through that hole to line up the viewfinder here.

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Do the shutter a few times.

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How do you stop it?

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-Push it up.

-Oh, I see.

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Ian's subjects today are a couple of climbing guides well used to tackling crags like these.

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He sets off in search of the kind of vantage point he thinks his predecessors would have used.

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It looks really high, which is the key thing.

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It's about 10 metres up, so it's as safe as houses but it looks really dramatic.

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Such an awkward camera to use.

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I've got two lenses but neither of them are really that helpful.

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Oh! What's happened to my film?

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One problem faced by both Ian and his predecessors is the limited amount of film.

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It's really, really frustrating because it's a really terrible camera to use.

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It's lovely using film again but I've got no idea whether its going to be any good.

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With his film finished and the weather deteriorating, Ian has no option but to climb back down.

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In the '30s, the climbing films would have had to be sent away for processing.

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Today, Ian and John are in for an anxious wait.

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Excellent. That looks wonderful.

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It looks really juddery and really old-fashioned looking,

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so they really didn't walk and act like that.

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It was the camera.

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The viewfinder isn't in a helpful position.

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For usablility, it's terrible.

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I would've said I'm amazed they got anything shot. But actually it's produced quite remarkable results.

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They were the pioneers, and I feel quite envious of that.

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To be a pioneer like they were, using a technology that hadn't been used before.

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It must have been a great feeling.

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At the Yorkshire Film Archive, where staff have begun the task of

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cataloguing and restoring the YHA's collection, archivist Binny Baker has made an important discovery.

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The box she's concentrating on contains four separate reels of one film entitled The Magic Shilling.

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Produced in 1949, it was the first film to be made

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after the Second World War, when film stock was scarce and access to the countryside restricted.

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The YHA needed another big promotional push.

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You just know that nobody has looked at this for a long time, and on this,

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one of the first things we noticed is that it is negative film.

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Prints might have been done from it, so this is the film that actually went through the camera.

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We thought this was going to be called The Magic Shilling, but as soon as you put it on, it isn't.

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It's called The Magic Triangle.

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One of the concerns was this reticulation,

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which you can see here, which is deterioration of the film stock.

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We then transferred it via a telecine machine,

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and during that process there is some enhancement that you can do to get

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the real kind of essence of what that cameraman, that photographer, wanted.

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Because over time it loses tension, the film warps, there are all sorts of things.

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But with modern technology you can almost get it back to its pristine best.

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One key difference in The Magic Triangle

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is that all references to class have been swept away.

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Instead, it concentrates on another of the YHA's core aims, the desire for international harmony

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in a world torn apart by five years of world war.

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This as a film was much more about the whole work of the YHA.

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But it based it on a couple who had joined the association.

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So there's a story. But it also widens out,

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and has, on the four different reels it has a whole different set of areas that it looks at.

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It looks at internationalism, it looks at the camaraderie of youth hostel members,

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it looks at the hostels, at the British countryside, it looks at the industrial nature

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of the towns they were coming from in order to go to the countryside.

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So it covers a huge aspect of the work of the organisation.

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Oscar-winning film producer Lord Puttnam

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is a former chairman of the Council For The Protection Of Rural England, who began his career in advertising.

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These films depict an attitude to the countryside which is essentially English,

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I'd say English more than British, essentially pastoral,

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it's romantic, it's broadly encouraging and highly traditionalist.

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They've become really interesting social documents.

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But as a means promoting the YHA's cause, he feels The Magic Triangle is a lost opportunity.

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I just was frustrated by the fact it could have and should have been done better.

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It didn't strike as having been made for a professional screening.

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It would have been loved by the people in it, they'd have absolutely adored it.

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If you look at that film, compared to the American, German or even French films of the period,

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it depicts a very English attitude to a very English countryside.

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It wasn't that the idea was bad. It was that the execution was bad.

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There's a lack of belief, a lack of self belief in the film.

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Although the film may have lacked panache, it was certainly was well timed.

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The post war generation was the first to benefit from legislation introducing paid holidays.

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Everybody's got an amount of money

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but they've got nothing to spend it on.

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You've got rationing on some things into the early 1950s.

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You've got shortages of all sorts of basic commodities.

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Getting to the countryside must have been a tremendous safety valve for people

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after the end of the war, once it became possible to travel again.

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But although its audience might have had more money to spend,

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the YHA had to be careful with its own resources.

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And that included a clever piece of recycling.

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One thing that's really fascinating about this particular film is that

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later on in the collection, later on in the years, they used it again,

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and cut it up into pieces, and made two separate films using original footage from this film.

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And it was a really exciting discovery to find that when looking through those films.

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You were looking at the footage thinking, "I've seen that shot again.

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"I've seen that shot before, where has it come from?"

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One of the re-edited films, Yostling,

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is made to promote the pleasures of Youth Hostelling in Britain.

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Cut down to less than 20 minutes, it's intended to deliver the YHA's message much more quickly.

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Even its inter titles are more succinct.

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They were a very frugal organisation, they worked with volunteers.

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They weren't going to spend their money unwisely.

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For all their pastoral charm, both Youth Hails Adventure and The Magic Triangle

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were filmed when there were continuing tensions about access to the countryside.

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The '30s had seen mass trespasses as the burgeoning

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ramblers movement sought to sweep away restrictions to open land.

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And the campaign for greater rights to roam continued after the war.

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But the YHA makes no reference to this bitter conflict with landowners in any of its films.

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The YHA was specifically founded in this country

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as a non-political organisation.

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Almost from day one, we were not seen as a pressure group,

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we were not seen as a group like the Ramblers Association,

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who were campaigning for access to the countryside.

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So although YHA members very much got involved in what they were doing, we as an organisation didn't.

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And I think that has perhaps held us in very good sway over the whole of our existence.

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The YHA also had to tread carefully when it came to sexual politics.

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Although clearly promoting equality and communal living,

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the films had to satisfy everyone that the YHA was respectable.

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The depiction of this very chaste organisation was there to reassure

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parents or to make girls feel more secure about going away to a YHA.

0:24:280:24:34

I could equally make the point that maybe a lot of the people they would have liked to have attracted

0:24:340:24:40

were turned off by it!

0:24:400:24:42

Great shots of people having to separate.

0:24:420:24:44

In virtually every single film of every decade,

0:24:440:24:47

when it's bed time, there's an absolute point at which each film says,

0:24:470:24:51

"Well it's night-night time now",

0:24:510:24:53

and the girls go off into one room and the boys go off into the other.

0:24:530:24:57

You see shots of dormitories where people are getting changed.

0:24:570:25:00

The YHA were obviously making a big thing of that, in order to convince parents

0:25:000:25:04

and I suppose to convince people generally, that it was an upstanding organisation

0:25:040:25:09

and it wasn't going to put up with any hanky panky.

0:25:090:25:11

Central to many of the films is the role of the YHA's wardens.

0:25:220:25:25

Many of whom cut their teeth here at Idwal Cottage in Wales,

0:25:250:25:29

which was often used as a location for filming.

0:25:290:25:32

It's the oldest youth hostel in Britain still in use and two days before officially reopening

0:25:320:25:37

after a major refit, a group of ex-wardens are returning

0:25:370:25:40

for the first time to see how life here has changed.

0:25:400:25:43

Hello, Ken, nice to see you.

0:25:430:25:45

The hostel has changed so much since we first knew it.

0:25:530:25:57

Six beds, two times three.

0:25:570:26:00

And everybody on a Friday or Saturday night would try and get one of these beds to be sleeping outside.

0:26:000:26:06

Lovely.

0:26:060:26:08

Joyce and John Pope were the wardens here in the 1950s.

0:26:080:26:12

We had to feed them and keep the place clean and turn them out

0:26:120:26:17

at 10 o'clock and let them in at 5 and generally keep order!

0:26:170:26:24

And hostellers didn't just come here for the climbing.

0:26:240:26:27

It was mainly for the lads, this hostel.

0:26:270:26:32

But the YHA slogan in those days for girls was "YHA - Your Husband Assured."

0:26:320:26:39

The job of warden was a powerful position, incorporating the roles

0:26:430:26:46

of regimental sergeant major, chaperone, and parent.

0:26:460:26:49

The name for youth hostel wardens in Germany of course is Hausvater and Hausmutter.

0:26:490:26:56

You were the parents to them.

0:26:560:26:58

We had no authority, of course, outside the hostel at all.

0:26:580:27:03

If they were doing things they shouldn't have outside the hostel,

0:27:030:27:06

the police would tend to blame us for it.

0:27:060:27:08

But actually, we had no authority over them, we could only advise.

0:27:080:27:12

A key part of every hostel was the shared common room,

0:27:140:27:17

where people of all walks of life were encouraged to meet.

0:27:170:27:20

Romance often blossomed here.

0:27:200:27:22

The common room was very closed in.

0:27:230:27:26

We had 40 to 45 people in and it was very tight, so we were all thrown together.

0:27:260:27:32

But in those days, it was usual to make your own amusement in the common room.

0:27:320:27:38

Part of the tradition was that there would be a sing song each evening.

0:27:380:27:41

Back inside the common room watching films of Idwal's past, echoes of those early days return.

0:27:410:27:47

And fragments of the songs have stayed in the memory too.

0:27:470:27:50

I'm sure we can give a rendition of some of the old songs! After you!

0:27:500:27:55

# One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.

0:27:550:28:00

# I'll sing you two, oh

0:28:000:28:02

# Green grow the rushes, oh!

0:28:020:28:05

# Two, two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green, oh, oh!

0:28:050:28:08

# One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so! #

0:28:080:28:13

Lights out was usually enforced by the warden at 10pm, however good the singing.

0:28:160:28:21

And the ethos of equality and shared experience

0:28:210:28:24

meant everyone who stayed overnight had to do a chore before leaving.

0:28:240:28:28

It was a movement and people joined it partly because of the accommodation and partly because

0:28:300:28:36

of the spirit of the YHA, which was something quite different to commercial organisations.

0:28:360:28:41

And also, it kept the costs down because we didn't have to employ staff to do all the chores.

0:28:410:28:49

And it made it possible for anybody to come, because it was very cheap.

0:28:490:28:55

From the outset, the YHA was keen to encourage greater international understanding.

0:29:030:29:09

Among those inspired by this message was a Manchester schoolteacher, Dr Graham Pink.

0:29:090:29:14

As an amateur cameraman, he established film making as part of his pupils education and recorded

0:29:140:29:20

his class's first ever trip abroad - a fortnight's youth hostelling to Switzerland in 1963.

0:29:200:29:27

I'd had an interest in still photography since I was a lad.

0:29:270:29:31

I was given my first camera when I was still early secondary school.

0:29:310:29:35

Y'know, an old box camera.

0:29:350:29:37

And I gravitated then, I suppose, once I'd started work here I could

0:29:370:29:41

afford to buy a camera, I bought a Bolex camera, an 8 mil.

0:29:410:29:46

And I set up a film club in the school, and we used to make little films,

0:29:460:29:50

and tried to use the youngsters.

0:29:500:29:51

This is the sort of camera I would have been using in those days.

0:29:510:29:55

Eight millimetre film - tiny film.

0:29:550:29:57

And it gave a surprisingly good result with Kodachrome film.

0:29:570:30:02

All mechanical. Quite a heavy thing, I must say, to transport,

0:30:020:30:06

and when I had all my gear with me for the holiday.

0:30:060:30:09

I just managed to collect as much film as I could.

0:30:090:30:14

We had a very pleasant couple of weeks travelling between, I think, three hostels in all we visited.

0:30:180:30:23

And we made this film.

0:30:230:30:27

Filmed by one of the pupils as he prepared to capture some of the stunning scenery,

0:30:270:30:32

Dr Pink was determined the boys should get the most out of the YHA's opportunity for cultural exchange.

0:30:320:30:38

Of course, we wanted our pupils to meet people from Switzerland itself, but of course, if you go to a hostel,

0:30:380:30:45

then you'll find there are visitors there from all over the world.

0:30:450:30:49

Which, of course, if we'd gone to a hotel, or a bed and breakfast, we wouldn't have experienced that.

0:30:490:30:55

They were there, they were abroad, they met other young people.

0:30:570:31:01

Having studied the history, the geography,

0:31:010:31:04

the geology of the country, they could see it at first hand.

0:31:040:31:08

This, of course, would be great fun for them.

0:31:080:31:11

Quite an event, in the middle of August, to be playing snowballing!

0:31:110:31:16

Later on, when I formed a film-making club in school,

0:31:200:31:23

I could show it to the pupils, and tell them, "Now, how would you improve this film?

0:31:230:31:27

"How would you edit it?" That sort of thing.

0:31:270:31:30

How did it change them? I think it gave them a wider view of the world.

0:31:370:31:42

It gave them a view of how other people lived.

0:31:420:31:44

It was their first trip to Europe, and I'd like to think it broadened their outlook on life.

0:31:440:31:49

I'm sure it opened their eyes.

0:31:500:31:53

As Binny builds up a clearer picture of what the collection contains,

0:31:560:32:01

one film-maker's name is beginning to stand out from the 1950s archive.

0:32:010:32:05

There's a really grotty old label here, and I can just about make out, "Western Lakeland."

0:32:050:32:12

It says it's 16 mill, and it's...what's that?

0:32:120:32:18

"In conjunction with...

0:32:180:32:20

"G. Moorwith."

0:32:200:32:23

Oh, and also with - that's really interesting - with Cowen of Keswick.

0:32:230:32:30

Now, Cowen is a film-maker who made two really significant films for the organisation.

0:32:300:32:35

So if additional material is being put into this film, again,

0:32:350:32:38

it's another example of using and re-using film.

0:32:380:32:41

So that's really good.

0:32:410:32:44

It doesn't smell too bad. It doesn't seem to be suffering too badly of anything.

0:32:440:32:48

Already there, I can see there's a break in that film, in the perforations,

0:32:520:32:56

so it may not even go through this particular machine.

0:32:560:32:59

If you look quite carefully, it's not straight,

0:32:590:33:02

so we'll have to go quite carefully, because we've got no idea, as yet, of the age of this film.

0:33:020:33:09

Fairly scratchy. It looks like it's been through the mill a few times.

0:33:160:33:20

See the clouds moving right over the mountains there, with a massive panoramic view.

0:33:220:33:27

But there we have a bit of a problem. Oh, golly, that's split.

0:33:270:33:30

I'm going to just have to make some running repairs.

0:33:300:33:34

On the original film are cement joints.

0:33:350:33:39

They dry out, depending on what the conditions are.

0:33:390:33:42

So this'll just be a temporary fix, just so we can go through, and look at it now.

0:33:420:33:47

Yeah, I can feel the original cuts in it, so it may be, you know, that this is the only copy of it -

0:33:480:33:55

because it feels like an original.

0:33:550:33:59

Early colour, Kodachrome, absolutely lovely, despite the scratches on it.

0:33:590:34:03

And this is one of the first ones that we've seen.

0:34:030:34:06

The only other colour ones that we know of this early period are by Cowen.

0:34:060:34:10

And as it said on the box, if we're to believe that tin, that's the same film-maker.

0:34:100:34:16

Cleaned and digitally remastered, the beautiful clarity of these images can finally be enjoyed

0:34:180:34:24

in the way the cameraman would have intended.

0:34:240:34:27

We're not getting so much YHA, "Join us, come and look at us."

0:34:370:34:43

That doesn't seem to be here, although they've got YHA signage.

0:34:430:34:46

Interesting shot, I haven't seen this in any of them - men taking the bins out,

0:34:480:34:52

with all the rubbish from the kitchens. SHE CHUCKLES

0:34:520:34:56

That's great.

0:34:560:34:57

If our research is right on these films,

0:35:030:35:06

these colour ones are the first colour films we have from Cowen.

0:35:060:35:09

He was obviously the film-maker of choice. We don't know an awful lot about him. He came from Keswick.

0:35:090:35:14

We've done some research into the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers,

0:35:140:35:18

because that's where a lot of film-makers joined that Association, in cine-clubs right over Britain.

0:35:180:35:24

But he doesn't seem to have been a member.

0:35:240:35:26

At first, Binny's research into this film-maker throws up few leads.

0:35:290:35:35

But a few weeks later, there's a break through.

0:35:350:35:38

At a house in Southport, more rolls of film shot by W Cowen

0:35:380:35:43

take pride of place at the home of a close relative - Alan Bale.

0:35:430:35:47

Called Bill Cowen to his family, and most people who knew him - he was my grandfather.

0:35:470:35:53

He was born in 1897, so he was a Victorian, one of the last Victorians. He ran a chemist shop,

0:35:530:36:00

so he would have had access to the materials, and to cameras, and so on,

0:36:000:36:05

cos that would have been what they sold.

0:36:050:36:07

He always liked still photography,

0:36:070:36:09

so he was quite a happy amateur photographer, to say the least, before the war.

0:36:090:36:15

In the '50s, and so on, he became a professional cameraman.

0:36:150:36:18

Bill Cowen's natural gift behind the camera is shown to great effect on the YHA film Breaking New Ground.

0:36:250:36:32

Here, the camera lingers on the delights of a rural Britain that was rapidly disappearing.

0:36:350:36:41

Cowen was clearly filming with the future in mind.

0:36:410:36:45

But it was his next film which was to cement his reputation.

0:36:490:36:53

COMMENTATOR: 'The end of the day will bring a common need -

0:36:530:36:56

'the need for rest, food and shelter.

0:36:560:36:58

'Let us therefore go down to join these many and different tributaries flowing now into a common stream,

0:36:580:37:05

'to where, irrespective of race, creed or politics,

0:37:050:37:09

'occupation or social distinction,

0:37:090:37:12

'there is a youth hostel offering food, warmth, shelter,

0:37:120:37:15

'and simple accommodation of a pattern these wanderers have created for themselves.'

0:37:150:37:19

Where All Ways Meet is the youth hostel's first film with sound.

0:37:190:37:24

They began in style - using the voice of one of the great broadcasters of his generation -

0:37:240:37:28

the Welsh poet, and BBC wartime correspondent, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas.

0:37:280:37:33

As far as how he knew him, I don't know.

0:37:330:37:35

He perhaps knew him through photography, or broadcasting,

0:37:350:37:38

and maybe he'd been working in the Lake District, and Grandfather had met him.

0:37:380:37:43

But, you know, it would have been quite a good person to have...

0:37:430:37:48

to have a well-known broadcaster actually doing the commentary on the film, I should imagine.

0:37:480:37:53

Where All Ways Meet is basically centred around the Lake District, which was his home.

0:37:530:37:58

And, you know, it shows a lot of the great landscape

0:37:580:38:03

of the Lake District, and so on - it's explored in that film.

0:38:030:38:07

I would imagine they were some of the first films he'd made professionally.

0:38:070:38:12

And it is quite fascinating, it seems very well shot to me.

0:38:120:38:16

You know, it was interesting to see that part of my grandfather's life come to life.

0:38:160:38:20

Bill Cowen's early work for the YHA was to provide a springboard to a successful career in film,

0:38:240:38:30

eventually leading to a job on the award-winning TV wildlife series, Survival.

0:38:300:38:35

A passion sparked to life by shooting images like these.

0:38:350:38:39

COMMENTATOR: 'Theirs for a day, the freedom of mountain, moor, or open road.

0:38:390:38:44

'The warmth of the sun, the clean, fresh bluster of the wind, the sweep of the sky.

0:38:440:38:49

'And above all, a feeling of deep content that will abide with them

0:38:490:38:52

'through the week of work ahead, and long after.'

0:38:520:38:56

COCKEREL CROWS

0:38:580:39:00

# Good morning! Good morning!

0:39:030:39:05

# Good morning! Good morning!

0:39:050:39:07

# Good morning... #

0:39:070:39:10

Another recurring theme in the films is food.

0:39:100:39:12

And in particular, the legendary cooked breakfast,

0:39:120:39:16

a meal seen as the height of luxury when many of these films were made.

0:39:160:39:22

When I first started youth hostelling,

0:39:220:39:24

immediately after the war, food such as this was tightly rationed.

0:39:240:39:28

COCKEREL CROWS

0:39:280:39:29

# Good morning! Good morning! Good! #

0:39:290:39:31

Those of us who lived in the towns, we were pretty lucky when we came out.

0:39:330:39:37

We'd...you know, pass a local farm

0:39:370:39:41

who knew us, and he would be prepared to sell us one or two eggs.

0:39:410:39:45

# Nothing has changed, it's still the same... #

0:39:450:39:48

We were all not very well off,

0:39:480:39:51

so to minimise our own costs - our own personal costs,

0:39:510:39:54

we scrounged food from home.

0:39:540:39:56

I mean, here you see, literally, a banquet.

0:39:560:40:00

We sometimes spent as much as two hours in the men's kitchen, in the self-catering kitchen,

0:40:060:40:11

because we'd all be laughing and joking, and talking together,

0:40:110:40:14

and there'd be a cup of tea on, and so you'd have your cup of tea.

0:40:140:40:18

And then afterwards, those who hadn't cooked...

0:40:230:40:27

would do the washing up.

0:40:270:40:28

It was fun, it was enjoyment, and...

0:40:310:40:35

in spite of my efforts today, we all learnt a lot,

0:40:350:40:40

and I think you would find that most of the lads and the girls that we used to go around with,

0:40:400:40:48

we all learnt our elementary cooking here.

0:40:480:40:51

-COMMENTATOR:

-'Hostelling is an experience that many of us have enjoyed at some time or another.

0:40:540:41:00

'For some, it is an occasional pleasure...'

0:41:000:41:03

Of the promotional output from the 1960s, one film stood out - The Hostellers.

0:41:030:41:09

A quietly subversive film, it began to ask some serious questions of the YHA's aging hierarchy.

0:41:090:41:15

It focused on the building of the first ever floating hostel in England,

0:41:150:41:19

and featured a young hosteller from Yorkshire called Ken Moody.

0:41:190:41:23

"I'm 19 now.

0:41:230:41:25

"I've been hostelling for six years.

0:41:250:41:27

"I help other people organise their holidays on the waterways.

0:41:270:41:31

"I see other people having their holidays and think,

0:41:310:41:34

""What a stuffy kind of holiday.""

0:41:340:41:35

Ken had been one of the founding members of the floating hostel,

0:41:390:41:42

Sabrina, and was instrumental in helping to kit it out.

0:41:420:41:46

For a month in the summer of 1964,

0:41:460:41:48

he would find his views on the YHA's establishment under careful scrutiny.

0:41:480:41:53

"I meet everybody I know through the YHA.

0:41:550:41:58

"I meet them hostelling at weekends. I go hostelling every weekend."

0:41:580:42:02

-COMMENTATOR:

-'Sabrina, the first floating hostel in Britain,

0:42:040:42:07

'was converted by a local group of hostellers in their spare time.'

0:42:070:42:11

I'd been to Sweden, and I'd stayed at the floating youth hostel in Stockholm harbour,

0:42:110:42:17

so I knew it could be done.

0:42:170:42:19

So we thought we could get a Yorkshire boat, and put it... moor it at Selby on the canal,

0:42:190:42:25

and convert it into a youth hostel.

0:42:250:42:28

A contact who was a barge operator in the Selby area

0:42:320:42:36

towed it up for us -

0:42:360:42:38

pushed it in through the locks onto the canal at Selby.

0:42:380:42:43

We pulled up by rope.

0:42:430:42:45

Nearly 50 years later, Ken is preparing to go back to Selby

0:42:490:42:52

to meet the film-maker who chose him as a focal point for one of the YHA's most defining films.

0:42:520:42:58

DUCKS QUACK

0:42:580:43:01

Gloria Sachs was an assistant editor with the British Transport film unit,

0:43:010:43:05

and was looking to advance her career when she was offered the chance to direct a film,

0:43:050:43:09

part-funded by the YHA, to publicise its activities.

0:43:090:43:14

You didn't have any grey hairs when I saw you last!

0:43:140:43:16

-Hello, Gloria! I've got as many grey hairs as you now!

-Not quite!

-SHE CHUCKLES

0:43:160:43:20

-Hello, darling.

-Lovely to see you. Lovely to see you.

0:43:200:43:24

-It's a while since we were down here.

-It is.

0:43:250:43:28

They used to put the boat alongside that cabin.

0:43:280:43:32

-So we were working over that side, weren't we?

-Yes.

0:43:320:43:35

What happened to the boat?

0:43:350:43:37

After the YHA finished with it, it was left moored up there for a while.

0:43:370:43:43

And the local children played on it, and vandalised it,

0:43:430:43:47

and after that, it was sold to somebody who towed it away,

0:43:470:43:50

and it's now been converted back into a houseboat.

0:43:500:43:53

Why did the YHA give it up?

0:43:530:43:55

Erm...it wasn't making any money for them.

0:43:550:43:59

It wasn't up to the standard of modern hostelling.

0:43:590:44:03

It was a simple hostel.

0:44:030:44:05

After filming the sequence on Sabrina,

0:44:130:44:16

Gloria's film widened out to become something which challenged the YHA to its very core -

0:44:160:44:21

an uncensored vehicle for the views of the '60s generation, with Ken and a friend, Brian Cotton,

0:44:210:44:27

travelling around the hostels in Britain, free to say what ever they felt.

0:44:270:44:32

"You find a small percentage of wardens are real sticklers,

0:44:350:44:40

"who think they can run these hostels on the army principle.

0:44:400:44:44

"It doesn't work out at all."

0:44:440:44:46

I was very actually very bored with films that had commentaries,

0:44:500:44:54

certainly, talking about the things you could see on the screen anyway.

0:44:540:44:58

Very boring.

0:44:580:45:00

I wanted something that was a little more free, and real, actually.

0:45:000:45:03

We did interviews with them, and from those interviews,

0:45:030:45:08

we edited the verbiage, as it were, and built the film around it.

0:45:080:45:13

"I think as it's run now, the YHA is pretty sound.

0:45:130:45:16

"It's just young people aren't getting experience to take over when the time comes.

0:45:160:45:21

"They're not given the chance.

0:45:210:45:22

"You've got to get the youngsters to take responsibility, and do the jobs."

0:45:220:45:26

That's what we really did feel - we were the new young rebels of YHA!

0:45:280:45:34

We made mistakes. We said the wrong things. We didn't expect them all to be included.

0:45:340:45:39

"Sometimes we try to get young ladies to cook our meals for us.

0:45:390:45:44

"But, from bitter experience, you often find that you get a meal...

0:45:440:45:50

"that usually half of it is burnt!"

0:45:500:45:52

Filming the Hostellers took a month.

0:45:570:45:59

Improvisation was the key, even down to inventing a suitable girlfriend for Ken.

0:45:590:46:04

Rather than take a girl with us up to Scotland for the scene,

0:46:040:46:08

the assistant director had his young wife with him, who fitted the bill.

0:46:080:46:12

I leant her a bicycle. It was my father's bike.

0:46:120:46:16

HE LAUGHS

0:46:160:46:18

And we put it together.

0:46:180:46:20

"When you meet a girl youth hostelling,

0:46:250:46:28

"you can jolly guarantee she has the same interests as you. For a start, you've got hostelling in common."

0:46:280:46:33

To somebody who had never been hostelling,

0:46:370:46:40

it gave them, I hope, a reasonable picture of what hostelling was about.

0:46:400:46:45

Happy days!

0:46:450:46:46

Ken's influence on the YHA's promotional output didn't end there.

0:46:540:46:57

He later joined the national executive,

0:46:570:47:00

and successfully argued that members should be allowed to use cars to travel to hostels.

0:47:000:47:05

The diehards at the YHA believed that youth hostels were there for people of very limited means,

0:47:050:47:11

who cycled, walked, and didn't have cars.

0:47:110:47:15

But cars were becoming cheaper, and people were using them

0:47:150:47:19

to get to the areas where they were going walking and climbing.

0:47:190:47:23

There were people still fighting against it into the '70s and '80s.

0:47:230:47:27

But we won the battle.

0:47:270:47:30

A significant development, which would be incorporated

0:47:300:47:33

into a film at the end of the flower power era called Passport To Roam.

0:47:330:47:38

"It was Roger's idea in the first place, because, honestly, I didn't think it would appeal to me.

0:47:380:47:45

"However, he insisted, and in we went.

0:47:450:47:48

"And I don't remember much about it, except there was a room with a piano, where they had singsongs."

0:47:480:47:53

Passport To Roam was a brave attempt to bring the YHA up to the 1970s.

0:47:530:47:59

"So I thought I might as well join, as weekends have been rather dull lately."

0:47:590:48:04

They start with what really is a very posh girl,

0:48:050:48:09

who is anti-going-to-the-countryside, and her boyfriend drags her along.

0:48:090:48:13

And she's very negative - the whole film starts in a very negative way.

0:48:130:48:17

In a sense, it uses class as a tool, then proceeds to immediately misuse it.

0:48:200:48:24

I thought they were reflecting the YHA

0:48:240:48:27

as it probably wanted to be thought of,

0:48:270:48:30

as opposed to offering me a glimpse of what life might have been like.

0:48:300:48:35

Come and get your drinks, then!

0:48:350:48:36

The way in which they communicated using film was to try and fit in with that feeling of the time,

0:48:420:48:48

so people who'd slightly moved away, and were trying new things.

0:48:480:48:52

They were wanting to draw those...

0:48:520:48:54

draw those hostellers back into the organisation,

0:48:540:48:59

and to encourage people who'd never started, who'd never enjoyed the countryside, to bring them back in.

0:48:590:49:04

I found Passport To Roam excruciatingly embarrassing.

0:49:040:49:08

It seemed to bring together

0:49:080:49:09

all the sorts of people you would least want to meet,

0:49:090:49:12

doing all the sorts of things you would least want to be involved in.

0:49:120:49:16

THEY ALL SING

0:49:160:49:17

It had this caricature of the worst kind of folk club.

0:49:170:49:22

THEY ALL SING

0:49:220:49:25

Can you hang on to that?

0:49:280:49:30

What about Don't Think Twice?

0:49:340:49:36

Then, they're highlighting that there are lights out,

0:49:360:49:42

and people have to go to bed at a certain time, and the warden enforces this,

0:49:420:49:46

so they're highlighting discipline.

0:49:460:49:48

One more song, then, please, and then off to bed.

0:49:480:49:51

# We love you, Warden

0:49:510:49:55

# Oh, yes, we do... #

0:49:550:49:57

Then they bring in a pathetic, subversive response,

0:49:570:49:59

that's embarrassing in every dimension.

0:49:590:50:03

It's deeply, deeply uncool.

0:50:030:50:05

-Can I have a bottle of orange, please?

-Of course.

0:50:050:50:07

-Shall I open it for you?

-Yes, please.

0:50:070:50:10

'It's depicting a world'

0:50:100:50:12

which I absolutely accept might have existed in the very early 1950s.

0:50:120:50:17

That world was dead and gone by 1965.

0:50:170:50:21

'It was an anachronism on the day it was made.'

0:50:210:50:24

-Do you do much hostelling?

-Quite a bit.

0:50:240:50:26

I did something you'd enjoy.

0:50:260:50:27

The promotional films had always been a mixture of the amateur and professional,

0:50:270:50:33

but throughout the '70s and early '80s, they appeared to stagnate.

0:50:330:50:36

More films like Passport to Rome,

0:50:360:50:38

featuring the hostellers themselves in predictable trips around the countryside,

0:50:380:50:43

failed to chime with the increasingly sophisticated visual demands

0:50:430:50:47

of the TV-watching generation.

0:50:470:50:49

COMMENTATOR: 'Some hostellers travel by bike, bus, train, or car.

0:50:490:50:54

'How they travel, and how they spend their time, is entirely up to them.'

0:50:540:51:00

The YHA began to reposition itself as a place for families, instead of just the young.

0:51:000:51:05

Later, the chores would be sacrificed to health and safety, and the ban on alcohol lifted.

0:51:050:51:10

The films of the '70s are about the increasing pressure

0:51:100:51:15

to conform and consume,

0:51:150:51:17

in terms of how you present yourself, in terms of what you're interested in,

0:51:170:51:21

and it's difficult for the YHA, actually, to slot into that.

0:51:210:51:26

So the problem is,

0:51:260:51:28

do you try to cling on to your existing constituency which is perhaps getting smaller?

0:51:280:51:34

Do you try to reach out more broadly?

0:51:340:51:36

If you want to reach out more broadly, what do you do?

0:51:360:51:39

A radical rethink was needed,

0:51:430:51:45

and it came with a ground-breaking film in 1984,

0:51:450:51:48

which featured actors from the hit children's programme Grange Hill.

0:51:480:51:52

Enter The Adventure was commissioned by former YHA chairman Hedley Alcock.

0:51:520:51:57

I'm asking you.

0:51:570:51:58

'I'll give you a clue.'

0:51:580:52:00

ELECTRONIC CHIMING

0:52:020:52:04

It went modern, it went directly to using a computer.

0:52:060:52:10

We were using professional people, and we were aiming straight at modern, young people.

0:52:100:52:16

It talked to them in their own language.

0:52:160:52:19

Press enter.

0:52:190:52:20

Not only did Enter The Adventure try to answer the specific needs of a new generation of teenagers,

0:52:280:52:33

but to reflect the wider changes in society too.

0:52:330:52:37

Totally different, and the new friend was a coloured guy.

0:52:370:52:41

That's another shift,

0:52:410:52:44

and again, it's emphasising that the youth hostel movement is universal, it's open to all.

0:52:440:52:50

As well as trying to prise youngsters away from their TVs and fledgling computer games,

0:52:520:52:57

the association was also struggling with the competition of cheap family holidays abroad.

0:52:570:53:01

This was the era when it became possible for ordinary, working people

0:53:010:53:06

to go out and have a fortnight's holiday in Spain.

0:53:060:53:09

We needed people to use and stay in our hostels.

0:53:090:53:12

It was no longer the...

0:53:120:53:14

the singsong in the common room in the evening.

0:53:140:53:18

It was no longer the make-it... do-it-yourself entertainment.

0:53:180:53:22

You tell me.

0:53:220:53:23

For actor Lee MacDonald, it was a chance to get away from his Grange Hill character Zammo.

0:53:270:53:33

Whoa! Steady! HORSE NEIGHS

0:53:330:53:35

I'm like a London lad, and everything was London and inner-London,

0:53:370:53:40

and I didn't see much of the countryside, except mum's caravan. It was just different,

0:53:400:53:45

and it just showed you that you could go off, and it wasn't expensive,

0:53:450:53:49

and you could enjoy yourself in the country.

0:53:490:53:51

I think that was my first awareness of youth hostels,

0:53:510:53:54

and that I could do it, and friends of mine could do it, and get involved.

0:53:540:53:58

Would Big Brother like to get me out of this?

0:53:590:54:01

When I got the part, it was so different than normal - you'd normally go and say your lines.

0:54:030:54:08

This was to go off, and do activities, which was really good.

0:54:080:54:11

There was canoeing and cycling and horse riding. I wanted horse-riding.

0:54:110:54:15

I've loved horse-riding since then. I got horse-riding, which was brilliant.

0:54:150:54:20

I think there's always a need to get kids out, you know,

0:54:220:54:26

into doing activities and stuff, and I think more so now than back then.

0:54:260:54:31

I think there are so many computer games and stuff now, more than there was then,

0:54:310:54:35

youth hostels should get out there, and blitz the kids, and get them out and doing stuff.

0:54:350:54:40

Today, as the youth hostelling movement celebrates its 100th birthday,

0:54:460:54:50

it's still using film to spread its message, but gone are the old-fashioned dramas,

0:54:500:54:54

and lingering images of the countryside.

0:54:540:54:57

If you can't get the message over in five minutes,

0:54:570:54:59

almost the message is dead in the water.

0:54:590:55:02

It's the delivery of that film, and how we present it.

0:55:020:55:06

We probably are gonna need to deliver messages via young people's mobile phones,

0:55:060:55:10

but that will be taking

0:55:100:55:12

that tradition on into the future, and actually delivering it

0:55:120:55:16

direct to the end user.

0:55:160:55:18

But while the fabric of the Youth Hostel Association remains essentially the same,

0:55:210:55:25

the social conditions in which it exists have been totally transformed.

0:55:250:55:29

And for lifelong member Dr Graham Pink, the future is something he's willing to invest in.

0:55:310:55:36

He's spent a quarter of a million pounds of his own money

0:55:360:55:39

on helping to refurbish Keswick youth hostel in the Lake District,

0:55:390:55:43

hoping it'll be part of a vibrant hostelling network

0:55:430:55:46

available for young people

0:55:460:55:48

with limited means for many years to come.

0:55:480:55:52

This is an example of what can be done with a very old building,

0:55:520:55:55

and turning it into a very nice, modern youth hostel for the 21st century.

0:55:550:56:01

When I offered to make a contribution to the YHA, I thought,

0:56:060:56:11

"I don't want to leave it until I die,

0:56:110:56:13

"I'd rather give it while I'm still alive, and I can see the results of it."

0:56:130:56:17

And this is exactly what I've got here.

0:56:170:56:20

It's very rewarding to come back, and see the excellent work they've done,

0:56:200:56:24

see the enjoyment that young people have,

0:56:240:56:27

and particularly youngsters that come here -

0:56:270:56:29

they most likely don't appreciate what it was like in the olden days.

0:56:290:56:33

They've made an excellent job of it, and it's nice to know that they are perhaps learning to use hostels,

0:56:330:56:39

and get the pleasure out of them that I had 60, 70 years ago.

0:56:390:56:43

The promotional films of the YHA, intended as a positive vision of the future,

0:56:490:56:54

have succeeded in capturing key elements of our past,

0:56:540:56:56

a past in which our ideas of youth and freedom,

0:56:560:57:01

adventure and independence have changed beyond recognition.

0:57:010:57:06

I think the YHA has become inevitably more middle-class,

0:57:070:57:11

and perhaps more conformist in all sorts of ways, including being conformist to consumerism.

0:57:110:57:19

I think it's had to. It would have gone to the wall if it hadn't.

0:57:190:57:22

I think its future is very different from its origins.

0:57:220:57:25

This was very early environmentalism.

0:57:280:57:30

The environmental movement, not based on science,

0:57:300:57:33

but based on an instinct that there was a lot to be gained from nature,

0:57:330:57:37

and that men and women within nature was a place

0:57:370:57:40

where your better instincts were likely to be stimulated.

0:57:400:57:44

Here we have a youth organisation that started internationally,

0:57:570:58:01

moved to Britain,

0:58:010:58:02

and they followed its development through the 20th century on film.

0:58:020:58:06

There's hardly any other collection that reflects that sort of enthusiasm for film,

0:58:060:58:11

and that very one-dimensional look at an organisation in the same way.

0:58:110:58:17

It spans an organisation's history through film.

0:58:170:58:20

MUSIC PLAYS OVER SINGING

0:58:220:58:25

Good night, all.

0:58:280:58:29

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:490:58:52

E-mail [email protected]

0:58:520:58:55

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