Donington 1943 on film

[taylov]

A rare sight on Channel 4 (UK) on yesterday afternoon, some 20 mins into the 1943 wartime film "Millions like us". The Gainsborough Studios film tells the story of a family from 1938 to the middle of WW2 - at this stage in the film one of whom is working at an army vehicle depot and the shot starts at the top of a hill looking at two parallel "roads" with army transport parked in 4 lines on the grass edge of each.

As the camera pans downhill, I realised it was sited at the old Melbourne Hairpin on the pre-war Donington track looking up the hill to where the Silver Arrows had become airbourne in the 1937 race. The telegraph poles which can be seen in photos of the 1938 Grand Prix were still in situ in this 1943 shot. The trees were devoid of leaf and entire site looked inches deep in mud suggesting the film had been taken in the winter of 1942/43. The entire sequence is only a few seconds long, but is a gem nevertheless.