BFI

Mining Review often included short promotional films about the training of would-be miners: a few months earlier it had examined Bestwood Colliery's innovative school.

While the earlier item focused on the actual instructional process, this portrait of the residential training centre at Easington in County Durham prefers to examine the wider environment, stressing the advantages of living in ("the boys are able to get a hundred hours more training than is possible by the non-residential method") and showing the boys playing football and sitting down to meals as well as attending lectures.

It also stresses the camaraderie between staff and students, with the warden taking on a talent-spotting role and recommending boys for specific jobs. As the commentary concludes "it's not only lectures and physical training that's important, it's the fact that these lads work and play together in a miniature community."

Michael Brooke

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