Through the night
A film depicting Newquay nearly ninety years ago has been discovered.
Newquay's RNLI lifeboat Admiral Sir George Back was captured on one of the first home movie cameras in the mid 1920's.
Go back ninety years and things were entirely different. Photographs were an expensive luxury and video footage a rarity.
This footage has survived nearly 90 years until 2010 and has been converted to a digital format.
A little bleached in places, it is a truly spine tingling experience.
The footage appears to have been filmed over a period of time; scenes include deck chairs and ice creams on the beach and snow ball fights in the streets.
The film shows the lifeboat Admiral Sir George Back launching down the steep slipway on Towan headland surrounded by many onlookers. The launching of the lifeboat was a real community affair with crew and onlookers alike summoned by the maroons.
Maroons are shown being set off at the beginning of the film by what would probably have been one of the coastguards. The footage then shows the lifeboat being recovered on Towan beach before being towed by horses back through the town, again surrounded by onlookers.
Other scenes in the footage show children playing in the snow on the town's streets, the gigs rowing across the bay and an ice cream seller peddling his wares on Towan beach.
The film is estimated to be post 1923.
