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ABSTRACT
The English folk rhyme ‘Monday’s Child’ predicts a fortune for children based on the day of the week on which they were born. Line 4 reads ‘Thursday’s Child has far to go.’ This article explores whether Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton edited the documentary film Thursday’s Children (1954) to convince the viewer that deaf children educated in the oral method at the residential Royal School for the Deaf, Margate, Kent, England, would go far. Alternatively, perhaps the filmmakers were presenting the educational experiences on offer with a film-title tinged with doubt. The film’s voice-over, scripted by Anderson, states: ‘without words there can be no thoughts, only feelings.’ We are also told that only one in three deaf children will achieve ‘speech’. This tension is presented in the documentary with a curious mixture of visual and verbal contradictions. The author argues that the seeds of Anderson’s other filmmaking can be found in this early documentary. His ultimate interest was not a ‘tender’ portrayal of children submitting to a particular pedagogy, but instead to show the power and camaraderie of children who, however, they might be taught, should not be made to feel dis-empowered.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Lottie Hoare is a Teaching Associate at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where she was an AHRC funded PhD student from 2013–2016. Her PhD and published journal articles have focussed on the representation of education in radio and documentary film since 1944.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 At the time of publication of this article ‘Thursday’s Children’ was available to view as one of the documentaries on the British Film Institute DVD ‘Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain’ box set of 4 DVDs. Catalogue number BFIVD825. Certificate 15. Also available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCtfBeCs7XA
2 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
3 The headmaster at St Ronans Preparatory School, W B Harris, had been a keen photographer and made 16 mm film footage of the school so at all stages of Anderson’s education he had been aware of film as a method of recording educational experience. Anderson, aged 11, was already writing film reviews in the Easter 1934 edition of St Ronan News. LA 6/3/1/15-17, University of Stirling Archives.
4 LA6/1/16/4, Diary, 4 November 1953, Quoted in Izod et al. (Citation2012, p. 56).
5 LA 1/2/3/8/7 Anderson to John Hemingway, 6 April 1981, University of Stirling Archives.
6 This remark about the mind is widely quoted in variant forms in the English language and attributed to a letter that Victor Hugo wrote to the deaf educator, Ferdinand Berthier, 25 November 1845. As the letter was written in French the direct reference was to ‘intelligence’ rather than the ‘mind’: ‘La seule surdité, la surdité incurable, c’est celle de l’intelligence.’
7 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
8 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
9 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
10 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
11 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
12 The Story of Little Black Sambo, was authored by Helen Bannerman and first published by Grant Richards, London, 1899. It tells the story of a boy from India, his family and a tiger and the language used in naming the characters caused much controversy and led to allegations of racism as early as the 1930s. The book illustrations often portrayed Sambo as if he was a cartoon gollywog toy rather than a human and the teacher shown on screen in Thursday’s Children imitated the book illustration while drawing the character.
13 LA 1/2/2/2 Script for Thursday’s Children, University of Stirling Archives.
14 Pathé News, Margate Tories Conference, 12 October 1953. 1 minute 54 seconds. http://www.britishpathe.com/video/margate-tories-conference (Accessed 3 July 2016).
15 Anderson made O Dreamland in 1953 as a private project and secured no rights for the sound track. It was first shown at the British Film Institute Free Cinema event in 1956. The managing director of Dreamland amusement park in Margate allegedly then wrote to the BFI to complain about his voice being used on the soundtrack without his consent. Anderson coined the term Free Cinema and it was understood as a short lived 1950s film movement that was free from the demands of the box office and of propaganda. Anderson later made the distinction that Thursday’s Children should not be considered 'Free Cinema' but O Dreamland should be. Anderson to Nick Ray 26 October 1982, LA 1/2/3/8/10, University of Stirling Archives.
16 One of the recorded voices that Anderson used, without consent of the speaker, for the documentary O Dreamland, can be heard describing the attraction Torture through the Ages: ‘This is history with life-size working models, your children will love it.’
17 LA 6/2/1/5 & LA 6/2/1/6/1/ Photograph albums 1952−1953 &1954, University of Stirling Archives.
18 LA 6/3/1/10 Lindsay Anderson’s childhood scrapbooks of magazine cuttings, University of Stirling Archives.
19 LA 6/1/13/1 Diary entries Monday 10 August and September 1953, University of Stirling Archives.
20 LA 6/1/14/1 Diary entry from 1953 in blue note book, University of Stirling Archives.
21 LA 6/1/14/1 Diary entry 4 November 1953, University of Stirling Archives.
22 LA 6/3/2/4 Book of Rules, Cheltenham College, University of Stirling Archives.
23 LA 6/3/2/7 Anderson’s Cheltenham College school cap, 1937, University of Stirling Archives.
24 LA 6/3/2/6 Cheltenham College blazer pocket 1936, University of Stirling Archives.