Efftee Film Productions Congratulates Miss Dorothy Fricke (1931)
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Dorothy Fricke is my mother. The background as I know it is that this film had been with my parents until approx early to mid 1980s when they gave it to the Chelsea Historical Society; and because of its excellent quality and importance in terms of being circa 1931 it was then sent to the National Archives.
I believe the background as to how this film got to be taken was that on arrival at the Hall earlier in the afternoon my mother and her parents were delayed from setting up the Hall due to the fact that a film crew were working there on some other project; and due to this the film crew kindly offered to stay around and film the 'Pride of Erin' (?); this they dutifully did and this priceless piece of family history (it also includes vision of my aunties and uncles who were also not married at the time) then remained in the family for more than 50 years; but to my knowledge was never played. My memories are that it remained in a metal film case approx 18" in diameter in a cupboard (sight unseen, but obviously very well preserved) until handed over to the Chelsea Historical Society. Whether in fact Frank Thring was involved is unclear; both my mother's family (Fricke) and my father's family (Sill) were prominent in the Chelsea District: it is not known whether or not the film was produced in the context of a 'documentation on the lives of Melbourne Society'; but that sounds good to me!
I would add that during the late 80s-early 90s I fortunately came across an advertisement in the Herald Sun which advertised (by title) a list of historical films (including this one) which were from the National Archives and which were to be shown the following week at a Historical Film Festival in Melbourne (Conference Centre); on contacting the organisers they immediately got Channel 10 to come down to the family home in Chelsea and interview Mum (I think it was the newsreader Mal Walden) and Mum featured that night on the Channel 10 News as somewhat of an icon of past life; she was very proud of herself and so were we when we were all invited to attend the film festival the following week and saw for the first time "1 min 5 sec" of what was, as I say, a priceless piece of our family history. At the time Channel 10 also kindly converted the film onto a Video; this being a more convenient form of viewing for the family to enjoy.
Mum (Dorothy) passed away January 16, 2006 at the age of 95 years and 5 months (her birthdate being 15/08/1910); and obviously we as a family have always regarded ourselves as being uniquely privileged to have such a wonderful record of family history.Posted on behalf of Ray Sill.
#1 from Editor – 14 years, 10 months ago.
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