Old Hands

1999, 35 mins BetaSP

A film about the 150,000 long term unemployed men from ‘distressed areas’ who were sent to do hard task work in remote labour camps, set up and run by successive British governments between 1929-1939. The film includes archive footage from a Central Office of Information film promoting the camps made by Edgar Anstey in 1936. Commissioned by Writers Republic with financial support from UNISON.