Britain at Bay: Peace & War 1937 – 1940

Now showing

Britain at Bay is a programme of films from the BFI National Archive, some rarely screened, others rightly celebrated. They vividly capture the transition from optimism to high alert as the nation faced up to another momentous conflict.

For many, British life in the inter-war years was characterised by a forward-looking idealism, an age in which tradition was celebrated and new ideas embraced. Despite the trauma of the Great Depression, the 1930s became the era of Mass Observation, an attempt to capture the minutiae of everyday British life, and the 'Machine Age', which saw developments in industry, consumer products and public amenities enabling the population at large to enjoy improvements to every aspect of work and leisure. Yet just as progress beckoned, the government had to prepare its citizens for the worst as war with Germany shifted from distant threat to grim reality.

Films

Around the Village Green
(Evelyn Spice & Marion Grierson | 1937 | 12 mins)

English Harvest
(Humphrey Jennings | 1938 | 9 mins)

Sam Goes Shopping
(Harold Purcell | 1939 | 6 mins)

Spare Time
(Humphrey Jennings | 1939 | 15 mins)

War Library Items 1, 2 and 3
(1939 | 10 mins)

If War Should Come
(1939 | 9 mins)

The First Days
(Pat Jackson, Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt | 1939 | 22 mins)

Britain at Bay
(Harry Watt | 1940 | 7 mins)