Archive footage of a family Christmas at a local home is one of many curious artefacts on show at a festive exhibition at Trafford Local Studies and Archives.
The winter-themed exhibition will run from Monday 1 December to Saturday 3 January alongside the service’s much-anticipated annual social media advent calendar, featuring newly digitised and unseen images from around the borough.
The cine film from a house in Sale at Christmas 1964 and 1965 will be available to view at Trafford Local Studies and Archives at Waterside House, as well as paintings, objects and vintage Christmas cards.
The stealthy arrival of Father Christmas opens the entertaining seven-minute home movie, showing two Christmases for three generations of one family in Sale and their beloved pet budgie.
From the fun of opening presents to the rituals of turkey, paper hats and setting fire to the pudding, these are traditional, happy events, though the star of the show is probably a new invention – the Dalek toy trundling around the kitchen floor.
The cine film was donated to the British Film Institute by Mrs Alma Rice of Timperley and the footage is now held in archives as a great example of everyday British life from that era.
Festive cards of historic Trafford featuring 10 different designs of winter scenes across the borough are now on sale at Local Studies and Archives, too. They include horse-led snow ploughs on Chester Road to glorious snow-laded trees at Flixton House.
Individual cards are £2 each and a pack of five – one design – is £4.50. Images used for the cards are from Trafford’s photographic collection, including scenes that have been recently digitised.
