Please read Understanding catalogue records for help interpreting this information and Using footage for more information about accessing this film.

Title: BARNS HOSTEL SCHOOL

Reference number: 3582

Date: 1942

Director: [d. William Kirkness]

Sponsor: [ SEFA Scottish Educational Film Association]

Sound: silent

Original format: 16mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 26.22 mins

Description: Boys enjoying a variety of activities at Barns Hostel School, near Peebles.

Barns Hostel School ran from 1940 to 1953. It was originally opened under a Society of Friends initiative to school boys that were proving too difficult to evacuate. Situated firstly in Peebleshire and then Berwickshire, the school was run under the wardenship of W. David Wills an English Friend who had previously pioneered psychoanalytically-oriented and environmental methods of working with difficult and disturbed young men. The film in your collection was made in 1942 by William Kirkness for the Scottish Educational Film Association when the school was situated at Barns House, near Peebles. [information supplied by National Records of Scotland, 2011]

The National Records of Scotland hold a collection relating to this School, for further information please contact http://www.nas.gov.uk

Shotlist: Reel 1
l/s large country house (.19) ints. people sitting round room (brief), shots of boys waking up in dormitory and going for a wash and shower (1.55) boys sitting down to breakfast in dining room, doing the washing up (3.04) sitting in room having a story read (3.23) boys on a walk (brief shot) (3.34) shots of boys sitting at desks in classroom using protractors (4.00) sitting listening to radio (brief), then running outside and climbing a tree (4.24) digging plants with hoes and forks (brief), painting watercolours outside (5.22) boys sitting outside with woman, sewing (5.51) c/u boy whittling, making a bow and arrow (6.16) boys sawing wood and whittling to make recorder-type instruments, a wooden aeroplane, and a wheelbarrow which they then load up with tents and equipment and take to field where they set up camp, shots of boys lighting fire with cooking pot above, cooking (9.14) boys running about playing on moor beside burn, then running back to camp for a meal, sitting round fire afterwards singing songs, shots of boys running about, on hillside [some shots repeated from earlier], running down hillside to camp for meal [repeated, different way round], sitting round fire [again same shots, different way round] (13.45) shot of boys returning home with wheelbarrow laden with camping equipment, and sitting on front steps of large house, playing recorders (14.34) boys lying sunbathing (14.47)

Reel 2
shots of boys playing with rabbits, guinea pigs and frogs (.42) shots of boys swimming in river (1.23) using home-made bows and arrows (brief shot), two boys going up hill with shepherd and sheepdog, watching sheep being herded and then walking back down hill with shepherd (3.46) boys watching tree being felled and logs being sawn, logs being towed away by horse (4.34) boys loading hay onto horse drawn cart, boys sitting on cart as it is taken to have hay unloaded (5.18) shots of boys feeding calves (5.47) shot of boys sitting on steps playing recorder [same shot as in reel 1] [film now very shrunk] (6.09) boys buying sweets from an outside table (7.39) boys at a lesson, then shots of them in sitting room reading books, doing a jigsaw, board games (9.54) at a birthday tea, sitting at table with cake and candles, one boy blows out candles (10.16) sitting with adults in sitting room, singing, sweets are handed round in a bowl (11.17) [blank] (11.23) man standing in doorway carrying boy piggy-back, l/s large house (boys' home?) (11.35)