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People and places of Perthshire’s past revealed by BFI

The Skimsters, which brought some Hollywood glamour to Loch Earn.
The Skimsters, which brought some Hollywood glamour to Loch Earn.

A treasure trove of rarely and never-before-seen documentary, newsreel and amateur films has gone online.

Offering a unique insight into Scotland’s people and places, among the gems are two Perthshire films from the 1950s.

The Skimsters brings a touch of Hollywood glamour to a waterskiing competition on Loch Earn in an award-winning amateur film.

The other local offering is a tongue-in-cheek tourist information film entitled Pitlochry Welcomes You, featuring the Blair Athol Distillery, tweed making, Pitlochry Festival Theatre and, bizarrely, men wearing deer heads.

The films which went online from yesterday as part of a major nationwide Britain on Film archive project span from the 1890s to the present day and have been digitised. They are available to watch for free for the very first time via the BFI Player.

The hope is that people will see themselves on screen or identify other performers in the films.

While researching the project, BFI creative director Heather Stewart discovered her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother together on film in scenes from Children’s Excursion (1952) featuring Moniaive in Dumfries and Galloway, the village she grew up in.

“I have never seen my family on film before so to discover three generations together was a wonderful surprise,” she said. “The emotional power of film is huge and Britain on Film has the ability to touch everyone in the UK.”

Highlights from Scotland include footage from the 1927 Up Helly Aa in Lerwick, a 1940s travelogue featuring many of Scotland’s youth hostels and a 1980 journey down Great Western Road in Glasgow, taking in businesses both long gone and still flourishing.

The films, selected from both the Scottish Screen Archive and the BFI National Archive, can be viewed at www.bfi.org.uk/britain-on-film.