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Sadness and Gladness (1928)
 

Synopsis

Warning: screenonline full synopses contain 'spoilers' which give away key plot points. Don't read on if you don't want to know the ending!

Credits. "If you keep your face to the sunshine then your shadows behind you will fall". Sadness. The story begins as John Fraser waits outside a factory gate with sign reading 'No vacancies'. He returns home despondently to his "single end" tenement home. The family eat a sparse meal. Jeannie and Mattie go off to bed dreaming about the unattainable summer holiday . The Education Officer, 129 Bath Street, Glasgow. Rev David McQueen, Convenor of the Authority's Committee on Necessitous Children. Shots of clerks in offices and close-up of the Rev McQueen A letter arrives at the Fraser household offering Jeannie and Mattie a place at summer camp. Preparations are made . Mother hands over the two girls to the Education Offices . Parents wave farewell to the girls as they board buses and drive away Leaving gloom behind. Entering sunshine ahead. LMS steam locomotive pulls train out of station . All the children are housed in schools kindly lent for the purpose by various education authorities. Girls, led by teacher, file into the school building in Gullane . Golden hours on golden sands. Girls play games on beach and dance the charleston for the camera . Memories of the old home make writing a positive pleasure (postcard and stamp supplied free of charge at all camps). Shots of girls surrounding the "cheery cook" . 13th July. Returning with happiness. Pipe band leads file of children out of [Central] station in Glasgow. Convoy of buses pulls away to arrive outside the Education Offices in Bath Street to a crowd of waiting parents . The girls arrive home to discover that their father has found a job. John Fraser writes a letter of thanks to the Education Department . End captions [half frame only] requesting donations to the NCHCF. In the other half frame a young girl performs fairy dance in ballet dress.