Now here’s a real discovery… The rather wonderful building at the end of Bennett Park, named “The Blackheath Arts Club”, and adorned with a blue plaque, was home to the GPO Film Unit, as mentioned back when this blog was only a baby.
Having spent some time googling around looking for more information on the GPO Film Unit, I found many references to a 1930s black and white propaganda movie called “BBC: Voice of Britain”. It was not only produced, but also filmed around Blackheath. There’s more here about it. I’d pretty much given up hope of ever finding a copy, and had written about it in the past, when I spotted a mention of the film on Louis Barfe’s rather wonderful Cheeseford Blog.
I duly fired off an email, and heard nothing until recently, when much to my surprise, he offered to send me a copy of the film! You can watch it here.
But now comes the tricky part – I’ve watched it, and cannot see much in the way of Blackheath there…. Could these be a leafy part of Blackheath?
They don’t look very familiar to me… In fact, the only part that did look like Blackheath, was this section towards the end, which looks a lot like Bennett Park to me:
Anyway, I’ll try to upload the full video somewhere soon, and you can judge for yourselves…. I’d be really interested if you do spot anywhere within Blackheath that I’ve missed – it’s quite likely that I don’t recognise some parts, or that some of the buildings don’t exist any more.
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