SHORE LEAVE IN CEYLON [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: SHORE LEAVE IN CEYLON [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: MGH 4572
  • Other titles: CAPTAIN BLUNDELL AMATEUR FILM [Alternative Title]
  • Summary: Silent 8mm amateur black and white footage shot by Lieutenant Commander George C Blundell of scenes in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) whilst HMS Kent was undergoing repairs at Colombo, March 1940.
  • Description: START 00:00:00 Monochrome footage showing a river barge on a river at Pettah, Colombo. A local man wearing only a cloth around his waist. Views of the prow of HMS Kent in the drydock at Walker's Dock, Colombo, the heavy blocks of timber on which the vessel is resting and the fore part of the heavy cruiser, showing the three anchors and the knuckle flare at the bow. A chameleon (used on board ship as a fly- and cockroach catcher) standing motionless in a garden. 00:02:07 Scenes with G K Pippet, Deputy Inspector-General of the Ceylon Police, and a friend of Blundell's: the sign for Chilaw Puttalam, a town about 100 miles north of Colombo, a book 'Service Register Ceylon Police' being held open and two Sri Lankan police officers, the one on the left identified as Acting Superintendent Dissanayake, posing for the camera. A Sri Lankan police corporal holds a single-shot Martini-Henry .45 rifle, a packet of ten rounds of Martini-Henry ammunition made by Imperial Chemical Industries in Birmingham and a bandolier of .45 rounds. Sri Lankan policemen take part in target practice on a firing range on a beach, watched by Pippet (seen here with a hat, white shirt and shorts and a pair of binoculars around his neck). 00:04:22 The headman of a coconut plantation in Sri Lanka. A plantation worker uses a long pole to bring down a bunch of coconuts from the top of a coconut tree, slices a coconut in two with a machete and eats it. Local road traffic on the move - oxen pulling a waggon loaded with coconuts and people riding in a bullock cart. 00:05:46 Scenes at a street market - a fortune teller (a palm reader) with a client, a large number of coconuts and pots for sale, a snake charmer holding up his cobra for the camera and playing on his pipe for two cobras and a street barber shaving the beard of a client with a throat razor. 00:07:11 Sri Lankan fishermen return to their village on the coast at Negombo - their boats, known locally as 'urowa', are shallow-draught outriggers with sails and capable of a great turn of speed. 00:08:27 Scenes showing floods on a main road and a section of railway line on the outskirts of Colombo showing local Sri Lankan inhabitants unable to get across the swollen river and flood defences - sand bags and wooden screens - holding the water back. The nest of a weaver bird hanging from a tree. 00:10:37 Colour scenes showing a tree-lined avenue in a European suburb of Colombo. 00:10:45 Monochrome shots of the gateway to Longden Place, G K Pippet's house (an Edwardian two-storey house), Pippet's name on the gatepost and the street number and a view of the house from the garden. Slow-motion shots of Pippet's bull terrier running around the garden. Pippet's Sri Lankan valet (given the name Simmonds by Blundell) and the gardener posing for the camera - the gardener, busy sweeping leaves off the grass with a brush, is reluctant to join in. 00:12:59 Scenes at Pettah, the market district of Colombo; a view of the front of the Wesleyan church built in 1816 and large trees leaning across the main street to form an arch. Pippet's Riley saloon car (local registration Z-933) uses a river ferry crossing whilst local people bathe in the river. A river barge powered by a sail. A snake charmer plays on his pipe in front of two cobras and briefly lets them wriggle free before picking them up. 00:14:51 Colour shots of a snake charmer holding his pet snake, two women bathing in a river, palm fronds drying (?), Sri Lankan children watching two snake charmers put on a performance with their snakes, a variety of tropical flowers, shrubs and plants and a bird's nest in a garden. END 00:17:19
  • Alternative Title: CAPTAIN BLUNDELL AMATEUR FILM [Alternative Title]
  • Colour: Colour
  • Digitised:
  • Object_Number: MGH 4572
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1940
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Blundell, George Collett1904-05-251997-10-19 (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Royal Navy, KENT (HMS) (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: Colombo, Ceylon (geography) Second World War 1939-1945 (event)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: Colour Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: None Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 8mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 208 ft (ca); Running time: 17 mins 19 secs
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    MGH 4572

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