An Incredibly Rare Film
Hello again, it’s been a while since I wrote anything here but I have saved a little gem for everyone. Whilst reading Destination Unknown by W Percy Withers he mentions the regiments arrival into East Grinstead en route to Forest Row, apparently the arrival was filmed by a local company and was shown later that day in the local cinema for the soldiers.
I began wondering if the film might possibly exist and started searching various film archives both here and abroad but with no success. I then tried the East Grinstead local pages and museum again with no success or so I thought.
A few days later an email arrived from the University of Brighton, specifically from the Screen Archive asking about the film and where I had found the reference to it. It appears they have a copy of the short film of the NSY arriving in East Grinstead ! It was an amazing feeling knowing that it existed AND it had been digitised and uploaded to their website. They sent a link to the site and with great excitement I clicked the link…
And there they were ‘ C ‘ Squadron North Somerset Yeomanry on film 103 years later. The film was part of a longer section featuring East Grinstead at war. It showed the mounted troops, Officers and NCO’s along with the various waggons of the troop including I believe the Forge waggon seen in the pictures of Ted Garland.
I’m hoping in the future to have a copy of the film to add to the archive I am trying to create but until then here is the link to the film, please enjoy an amazing rare find of a moment in history. (NSY at 3:20)