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Title: SCENES FROM A SHETLAND CROFT LIFE

Reference number: 0980

Date: 1932

Director: [d. Jenny Brown]

Sound: silent

Original format: 16mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 6.54 mins

Description: How peat is cut using a "tushkar" and made ready to be used as fuel in a croft in the Shetland Isles.

Original title: PEAT FROM HILLSIDE TO HOME. Bought by John Grierson for the GPO library c1936, along with Jenny Brown's other films for the sum of £40.00.

Shotlist: Title (0.10) Peat from hillside to home (0.19) Ramsie makes sure his tushkar is ready for a day's peatcutting (0.24) A crofter re-shapes his tushkar with a hammer and then goes to dig the peat. (0.49) His wife calls him back to give him his packed lunch. He then continues on his way (1.27) He must first remove the turf from the top of the peat bank (1.33) The crofter takes off the turf with a special shovel (1.46) Please replace the divots. Crofter replaces the turf (2.06) Now he can get at the peat. He digs out the peat with his tushkar, which takes out the peat in oblong blocks (2.53) Lucky he has a thoughtful wife. The crofter stops work to eat his lunch and have a smoke (3.27) A week later his wife and sister help to raise the peat to let it dry thoroughly. Shots as the crofter and two women stack the peat for drying (4.27) When dry the peat was built into a roog and from there it is carried down to the house. The crofter and his wife load their baskets and carry the peat to the croft (6.12) The crofter's sister takes a few lumps of peat into her house (6.37) shot of smoking chimney (6.51) ecs (6.55)