Six Towns on Film - TUNSTALL

£12.99

This collection of archive films and interviews from Staffordshire Film Archive represents the best examples of Tunstall captured on film from 1910 to the 1970s.

We begin in 1960 with the 50th anniversary of Federation and Tunstall introduces itself. In 1910 e see dustmen in the backs of Nashe Peake Street. We hear stories of George Barber, who opened the Picture Palace first cinema in the Potteries – in 1909.

We see newsreel of the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1924, and hear how Knotty drivers negotiated Tunstall station and see rare film of the Loop Line. We take a steam train ride through Harecastle tunnel, then see boats working the tunnel in the 1940s.

The Miners’ Transfer Scheme of 1964 brought Durham miners to Chatterley Whitfield. We see it in operation as the Mining Museum, and hear miners from Victoria Colliery talking of pit life in the 1960s.

There is a special feature on the Golden Torch night club - converted from an old cinema by architect Roy Vickerman, who takes us through the whole process to the grand opening and its lifespan through to being destroyed by fire. The Golden Torch is brought to life again with Legendary Lonnie – with pictures of the regular groups that played there in the 1960s – and after scenes and comments from the early 1970s, we have a brief review of Tunstall in 1910.

The collection ends with a documentary film record of the research into and dedication of Tunstall's new War Memorial.