Summary: Promotional film for the Royal Naval Benevolent Trust (RNBT). Aimed at serving naval personnel, the film explains how the trust is funded by a percentage of purchases made in the NAAFI, and illustrates how the RBNT makes a difference to people’s lives.
Description: On the deck of an aircraft carrier, the men are called for a break; they rush below decks to the canteen and crowd around the serving hatch; a new recruit is at the back of the queue and does not have time to finish his cigarette, which he then throws overboard into the sea. The narrator, Percy Hancock, urges the audience to think more about what that cigarette means.
Young, happy children return home to a large country orphanage by train. They play, eat, and go to bed, where two boys have a pillow fight. The widow of a Navy man sits alone by the fireplace. Hancock explains that she has found a group of friends who have an activity in common, and she is then seen with a group of ladies knitting together. As a group of sailors leave their ship, Hancock explains they are leaving the Navy, but one sailor is uncertain as to his future employment prospects as he does not have the necessary qualifications or skills for factory work. At a factory workers arrive for work and clock in, but the sailor is unable to join them. He then attends a naval school where he obtains the necessary knowledge and skills through workshops and classes, and then is seen going to the factory with the other workers.
Close up shot of cigarette end in the water. Onboard the ship a group of sailors read their letters from home. According Hancock not all the news is good. A woman leaves hospital with a baby, following complications which lead to a large nursing bill. An old man is knocked down by a reckless driver, while an old lady talks to a rent collector on her doorstep, then slams the door shut. The cigarette end is seen again in the water, as the narrator explains that "this fag-end may help to solve some of these problems". The woman with the baby is then seen with a new pram, the old man in a motorised wheelchair, and the old lady washes the windows of her new one-story pre-fab house, all funded by the RNBT.
Percy Hancock (dressed in Navy uniform) is seen talking to the new recruit in the ship's canteen; where he explains that a rebate is paid on all onboard purchases, one-fifth of which (represented by the cigarette-end) is paid into the Royal Naval Benevolent Trust (945). Details of how much money is involved and how it is spent and given, and he explains how the scheme is run by the Navy for the Navy, with footage of various naval activites. Film ends with Hancock making a final appeal for naval personnel to apply to the RNBT.
Alternative Title:
Colour:B&W
Digitised:No
Object_Number:MGH 3616
Sound:Sound
Access Conditions:
Featured Period:
Production Date:1947
Production Country: GB
Production Details: Royal Navy (Production sponsor)
Taurus Film Productions (Production company)
Bezencenet, Peter (Production individual)
Hancock, Percy (Production individual)
