Gaumont-British Instructional

Story of how two youngsters round up crooks planning to blow up the British fleet off Gibraltar.

In Australia, five children pursue horse thieves through the mountains.

A film based on a story by Leo Tolstoy about a cabinet maker, his wife and an angel punished by God.

The Case of The Missing Scene is a children's crime thriller that has been designed in the tradition of classic British children's films. A camera team takes pictures of rare birds from a hide when a poacher happens to get into the picture. The evidence (namely shot 63) disappears under mysterious circumstances. As always in these films, the case can only be solved with the help of a few bright children.

Poetic tribute to Mrs Turner's vegetable growing prowess, plus the delights of "wartime steaks".

A party of children take an eye-opening tour of John Brown's Shipyard in Clydebank.

Claustrophobic train-set comedy-thriller (produced by H.G. Wells son) with an ace reporter coming up against crooks intent on stealing a gold shipment on the Scotland to London express. A scatterbrained scientist, a gun-toting dame with revenge on her mind and a pair of eccentric spinster crime novelists – who steal the film – round out the motley band of passengers who cross the path of our intrepid hero as he tries to get his big scoop.

Documentary about the building of ships at Barrow-in-Furness.

A Secrets of Life short.

Time-travel to a 1940s classroom with this exemplary educational film.

A dramatization to promote the Territorial Army.

Documentary highlighting how land has been reclaimed for agriculture in Scotland.

Go with the flow: to gentle but spellbinding effect this innovative natural history film glimpses marine life astride rising tides at Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae. Urchins, lugworm, weaver-fish and crabs are the shy-but-elegant stars coaxed onto the screen (with the assistance of Millport’s local research station) for this archetypal edition of Gaumont-British Instructional’s 1930s cinema series Secrets of Life.

Part of the Junior Biology series, this study of pin mould is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.

Story of young boy and girl who help aircraft designer to outwit gang of spies trying to steal secret plans.

Documentary explaining how double bilateral variable area optical soundtracks are recorded onto film and played back in cinemas.

Adventures on a fishing boat as told by two young boys who experience what it takes to be a fisherman at sea.

Part of the archive's Junior Biology series, this study of maize is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.

History - and natural history - filmed on location in Selborne, East Hampshire. This unusual edition of the long-running series Secrets of Life tells the story of the village's famous son, Rev Gilbert White, whose 1789 book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne is a classic of natural history. The film follows in his footsteps, with camera rather than quill in hand, focusing on nature but also taking in views of the village and its human inhabitants. The ingenious close coverage of bird, reptile and other wildlife was the stock-in-trade of the filmmakers at Gaumont-British Instructional, producers of the series. Under the direction of the redoubtable Mary Field, the behind-screen talent here includes legendary 'cine-biologists' Percy Smith and Oliver Pike. A tribute by one generation of pioneering naturalists to another, it's a quietly moving film in spite of its clipped English reserve - or perhaps partly because of it.

The film opens in January, showing scenes of a frozen pond and shots of the fields. followed by young cattle, or store cattle, being turned out to graze. The ruins of St. Mary's Abbey are in the background. Manure from the yard is loaded onto a tumbrill and two horses pull the tumbrill along a heavily rutted land for spreading on the fields. This is then ploughed in by horse plough.The head stockman prepares food for the sheep before lambing. He is wearing a sack tied around his waist as protective clothing. The film shows the lambing pens being built out of hurdles covered in straw. The sheep are brought into the pens where they are fed with mangles (mangolds). The spring sowing. The harrow and the seed drill are both pulled by horses. The operation of the drill is explained in detail. The final shots show a worker applying a top dressing to the field using the broadcast method.