DVD & CD

Addressing the Nation DVD

First in a series of 3 double-disc box set DVD’s celebrating the GPO Film Unit

Addressing the Nation contains 15 films from 1933 – 1935 and provides a fascinating exploration of the unit’s early experimentation with sound. Features the award-winning Song of Celyon and A Colour Box, the critically acclaimed Weather Forecast, Coal Face – Auden and Britten’s precursor to Night Mail and other neglected works many of which will be available for the first time since their original release.

Night Mail DVD

Digitally re-mastered edition of the classic documentary Night Mail, 1936 produced in partnership between the BPMA and the BFI.

One of the most critically acclaimed and best-loved films produced within the British documentary movement, Night Mail (1936) tells the fascinating story of the travelling post office from Euston to Glasgow and the men who worked on it.

Initially given a modest budget of only £2000 and commissioned to promote services of the GPO, the collective talents of the GPO Film Unit led by John Grierson produced an ambitious and inventive film that became an instant success and is now regarded as a classic of its genre. The memorable final section of the film, featuring Benjamin Britten’s innovative score and verse by W H Auden is perhaps the most lyrical final sequence in the history of documentary film.

Specially packaged, the DVD contains extras including four short films; The Way to the Sea, 1936 Spotlight on the Night Mail, 1948 Thirty Million Letters, 1963 and Night Mail 2, 1986 and a booklet featuring an essay by writer and poet Blake Morrison.

Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired. Region 2. Black and White. 116 minutes (including extras)

Speeding the Mail

An oral history of the post from the 1930s to the 1990s

This superb audio CD contains highlights from a collaborative oral history project originally commissioned by Royal Mail Group, and carried out with The National Life Story Collection at The British Library. It features contributions from a wide variety of postal workers past and present including counter staff, mail sorters, a former Postmaster General and of course, postmen.

Covering 60 years of postal history, it provides a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes to see how the job was done. The contributions are lively and informative, vividly conjuring up the way we used to work. The CD booklet also contains detailed track listings and reproductions of photographs from The Royal Mail Archive.