Beginnings

Greg Hemphill takes a sideways look at some remarkable documentary films. Between 1938 and 1982 over a hundred and fifty films were made to sell Scotland to the world and tell Scots themselves about their own country.

The first Films of Scotland were made for the 1938 Empire Exhibition. Rare colour film shows how magical the exhibition was for the children of depression-scarred Glasgow. The seven amazing films made especially for the exhibition showed audiences something they'd not seen before - real people in real places, from the remote Highlands to the shipyards of Dundee. As well as stunning extracts from these early films, we hear from people who remember the Empire Exhibition, and from a pupil featured in one of the original documentaries.