Mexborough and Swinton Times, November 16, 1928

“The Toilers.”
The Miner at Work and Play.
A Coalfield Film.

The Empire Theatre, Mexborough, was densely crowded on Sunday night for the first public exhibition of Mr. Charles Hanmer’s  (picture) film, “The Toilers,” and hundreds who were curious to see this film had to be turned away. Thanks to the generosity of the proprietors of the theatre (Messrs. Woffinden), the St. John Ambulance Association and the Montagu Hospital who are to divide the proceeds, will benefit substantially by the excellent public send-off given to this enterprise. The takings amounted to nearly £50.

The film is a kind of scenario of social life in a typical coalfield. It has been done boldly and cleverly, with many a touch of imagination and humour, and Mr. Hanmer is to be congratulated upon an interesting performance. There are obvious weaknesses, but the general effect is striking, and we think that southern audiences—for whom the film is mainly intended—will be suitably impressed. Mr. Hanmer has made no conscious effort at propaganda on behalf of the mining districts, nor has the film any special value of that kind. It does not show mining in its grimmer aspects, and indeed the general impression one could easily get is that on the whole the miners and their families know how to enjoy themselves and do not lack opportunity for enjoyment. The sadder side of the film belongs largely to the past, to the quiet country churchyards with their grim memorials of great disasters in pre scientific mining days. The film shows us very little of the miner at work today, but that little serves for contrast with the toilsome and perilous conditions under which coal was worked three or four generations ago. A. large—perhaps a disproportionate, part of the film is occupied with the miners’ pleasures, some of which to southern Audiences will seem quite exotic. Indeed,will seem quite exotic. Indeed, It came as something of a surprise and a pleasurable shock to us, who thought we knew our coalfield fairly well, to learn that classical dancing was included among the miners enthusiasm.

The film is rather discursive, and the tourists – the film, it will be explained, is cast in the form of a 10 days tour of the coalfield – are hurried hither and thither with discomforting rapidity. They have no sooner been invited to come and mourn awhile in Darfield churchyard by the monument to the victims of the Lundhill explosion, than they are whisked off to see a little boxing at Mexborough and a spasm of hand ball on the Queen’s ground at Barnsley.

There is embodied in the film the rudiment of a heartrending story, that of the Walkers, father and two sons, who on the last day of the year 1886 were killed in a cage accident at Great Houghton, along with seven other men, including two more fathers and two more sons.

Mr Hamner has reconstructed this story for us in a few hundred feet; and it would have been well if he had expanded; for this is one of the best things in the whole film. “The Last Shift” has been capably acted for the producer by the Denville repertory company, who  were recently in the district. But this little drama as no sooner great ones than away we go again, fleeing melancholy, to be cheered with visions of miner’s daughters playing tennis, skipping, angling and dancing, and miners pursuing peaceful and respectable hobbies like gardening and stock breeding.

The miners work underground is shown to us only in the last section of the film. This section is a very creditable piece of photography, for which Mr Hamner cannot be praised too highly. Incidentally it was of far greater interest to the bulk of the audience than anything that had gone before. The pit boys cheered delightedly at the few feet which showed corves running up and down the jinny and their joy knew no bounds when they got an occasional glimpse of a pit pony. There were excellent views also of miners holing and timbering, and of the loading and unloading of cages.

But in this film, depicting the miner at work and splay, there is some lack of proportion, an “intolerable deal of sack to a pennyworth of bread.”

It is true, as the film continued to remind us, that the times are changing  and we with the times, but many old miners who saw the picture on Sunday night must have stared round-eyed at the amount of sport and pastime that would seem to enter into the life of the coalfields to-day. If this film is intended in any way to excite pity or commiseration in the pastoral regions of England for the forlorn state of mining communities, it, may easily fail in its purpose; but if it is intended to present to the world the miner in an amiable light, it will be effective and will no doubt do good.

The film is a “talkie” of a sort. Mr. Hamner accompanies it wherever it is exhibited, and supplies a ceaseless flow of comment which is less distracting than one might expect, and now and then definitely helpful and entertaining.

On Sunday night Mr. Tom Williams, M.P., cave his blessing to the film, and said he was delighted that the first exhibition should be for the financial benefit of such worthy movements as the Montagu Hospital and the St. John Ambulance Association, and hoped it would be shown far and wide for the benefit of people in non-mining areas unacquainted alike with the difficulties of the miners, and with their sunny side.

Mr. Hanmer, who is an old miner also offered a remark or two particularly to the younger miners in the  audience, and said they would find that the miners as a body would be more respected by the country as a whole when they began to respect themselves more—a sentiment the truth of which was felt and applauded.

Before the film was shown, there was a short, programme of songs and elocutionary items by Mr. Ambrose Bradshaw and Mr. Hedley Hepworth.

The film is to be shown on Sunday evening at Fitzwilliam.