THE Free Press has been given precious clips of an historic film made in High Wycombe more than 80 years ago.

THE Free Press has been given precious clips of an historic film made in High Wycombe more than 80 years ago.

Film fan John Smithson, of the High Wycombe Film Society, invited the Free Press to visit his film room to witness the last time that Peace Celebrations, Children's Day, was together in one piece. Much of the film is now so badly decayed it has had to be thrown away.

Mr Smithson, of Green Hill, High Wycombe, himself a retired BBC camera worker, said: 'It has been transferred on to video, so it is not going to be lost forever.'

The film was made on August 16, 1919 on The Rye in High Wycombe and marks an event attended by hundreds of families from High Wycombe.

The films were made on cellulose nitrate film up to about 1950 which means the film eventually rots away. It gets sticky, starts to smell like vinegar and the pictures finally disappear from the frames.

Mr Smithson added: 'The nitrate is built into the film and the sad fact is that they will rot away. All the films are on reels and they all stick together and nothing can be done to to prevent it.'

The High Wycombe Film Society was founded in 1947 and its presidents are the famous film brothers John and Roy Boulting. It consists of around half a dozen members and now works as more of an archiving group, rather than film making, holding hundreds of films between them and Wycombe Museum.

The short film holds 18 frames per second, so the film roll was very long but only lasted for a few minutes. As Mr Smithson rolled through it he cut out sections that were intact and gave them to the Free Press to use.

He explained: 'This film would have probably been shown at the Palace Cinema in Wycombe after it was filmed and most likely played out to a packed audience. Cinema was all you had when you were courting in those days.

'Of course TV came along but it wasn't very good so you went on a weekly visit to the cinema.'

Mr Smithson added: 'My main ambition is for someone to find a rusty old can that they have found and for it to have a film that has not yet been discovered.'

Anyone who has old films that might be of interest can contact reporter Kelly Clayton on (01494) 755087