Mr. Till. Reel 2.

Date:
1939
  • Film

About this work

Description

The second of 4 film reels from the collection of home movie footage shot by Dr. Anthony Stedman Till. This amateur film is part 2 of Mr Till's tour of Canada and the US; it starts with colour footage of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan with footage shot from the point-of-view of a passenger in a train. The Calgary 'stampede' follows (more a sedate parade past the camera of Canadians, cowboys, bandsmen and various people on horseback or wagons). There is footage of a rodeo - shot at some distance as well as steer lassooing followed by racing. Till has captured footage from a number of vantage points. The event also features 'chuck' waggon races. At night time, the neons for the American Exposition are shown, then ice-cream vendors. He then journeys through the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver Bay and Seattle which is reached via aircraft (with point-of-view shots of the plane in flight).

Publication/Creation

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1939.

Physical description

1 film reel (11 min.) : silent, black and white, & color, 16 mm

Contributors

Copyright note

Not known.

Notes

Supporting paperwork available in the department.
This amateur footage was shot by Dr Anthony Stedman Till in 1939; Till himself donated them to the library and provided some information about them. He set off on his own expedition across Canada and the US in 1939 before the outbreak of war. The footage he shot is mostly colour. He was a highly regarded surgeon (his specialism was in thyroid and abdominal surgery). His visit to Canada seems to be of a professional nature with two visits to hospitals - Toronto General Hospital and The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. At Toronto General Hospital members of the medical staff are named although some of the footage shot inside is rather dark and a little unsteady. At the Mayo Clinic we are shown an operating theatre with what appears to be open heart surgery taking place. Many major landmarks feature along this journey including the Heights of Abraham, Niagara Falls, Rocky Mountains, Vancouver Bay, etc. The footage certainly marked a turning point in Till’s life: in 1940 he joined the RAMC and served in the Middle East, Cape Town and Suez. He was captured and became a POW, imprisoned in Stalag VIIA. As a POW he operated on fellow prisoners and local civilians, then at some point (according to his obituary), he was repatriated to the UK for his services (he spoke fluent German). He was then part of the 181st Field Ambulance, which was in the vanguard of the medical relief of Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp.
An obituary outlining Till's life can be read here: http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E000353b.htm

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