British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

Home and Away

Dates
1954 - 1961
Category
Cinemagazine - Industrial
History
Home and Away was a series of black and white cinemagazines made for employees and the communities surrounding Babcock & Wilcox plants in Paisley and Renfrew, Scotland. Initially devised as a quarterly magazine, it described itself as ‘a film review of Babcock achievements, sport, social and local events for members of the Babcock & Wilcox family’. Issue one included the Cowal Games, the Scottish Industries Exhibition, Calder Hall atomic power station and the Babcock boilers at Castle Donington power station. A Scottish commentator was used but a ‘broad accent’ was avoided because although primarily shown within Scotland, they also had some international distribution. The company claimed in 1956 that each issue, of around 15 minutes, was seen by 60,000 people, after it was shown in eleven cinemas over three weeks. It was then shown throughout the Babcock Works at Renfrew and Dumbarton by means of a mobile van seating 150 for another three weeks. The estimate was that 2,000 employees viewed the film this way. Twenty issues of the series were produced with many of the stories re-packaged as Babcock Review.
Provenance
The records of this series were compiled from donor files at the British Film Institute, and the records of the Scottish Screen Archive.

Films in this series can be obtained from:

Film Archive

Name
British Film Institute (BFI)
Email
For BFI National Archive enquiries: nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk For commercial/footage reuse enquiries: footage.films@bfi.org.uk
Web
http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web
Phone
020 7255 1444
Fax
020 7580 7503
Address
21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN
Notes
The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).
Series held
View all series held by British Film Institute (BFI)

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