Oyster Fishing at Whitstable, England (1920)

[prophismusic]

good clips. needs audio

[whiteboy6740]

i spent many days on the deck of an oyster boat and its hard work but nothing compared to this....these were true fishermen...that was serious hard work back then

[crompton33001]

Being a 'Native' I must say this is Great. Is there any footage of the Harbour during the Railway days (1830 - 1953)

[loveasquillion]

i gotta say. i'm watching this to annalyse in my creative and media class, and its very rubbish!

[rgwholt]

Not a pair of gloves or life jacket in sight......hard men !!

[slapavisionarchival]

Great :)

[toebonian]

The part that mystifies me is how they call the little oysters to run and jump into their baskets to be hauled up into the boats.

I remember the walrus and the carpenter had their own methods, but this film doesn't seem to go into that part!

I wonder who went down to call them? hmmm

[phill903]

Good movie.

[alsyapal19461946]

Thanks for posting this and I have suscribed so that I can see other films in the archive. I stayed in Whitstable for three months recently and love the place - and yes had oysters at Peasons.

[demon27dan]

That may indeed be so! Maybe it was all those oysters!! I remember when I tried one once and my dash to the toilet was more of a panicked zig-zag across the room!

[Sn0wFreak]

why is this type of old filming so strange looking..like the people are moving oddly

[demon27dan]

This was a hand-cranked camera and the operator needed to turn the handle at a certain and very precise speed; slightly too fast and the people seem to be moving slowly, too slow and they seem to be moving quickly. It was very difficult for the operator to maintain the precise speed necessary to achieve perfect, natural movement, so the people move jerkily and unnaturally. In old comedies, cameras would be 'under-cranked' so car chases (i.e. Keystone Cops) look faster than they actually were.

[YusefAsabiyah]

It turns out to be a commentary on the class structure of British society.

[SteffanLlwyd]

Easy to fall overboard eh? Whistable's still got something special about it... It's quite something to see all those ghosts, so to speak.