By Graham K. Rogers

When I was a kid living in north-west London, there was only one TV channel, radio was a popular form of home entertainment and the cinema was a major form of family entertainment, although that did take a back seat when series of Hammer horror films were released: no kids there.

There was always the Saturday morning movie program, with cartoons, a serial (such as Rocket Man) where the hero was doomed at the end of each week and a major movie. Most of these were low budget British fare and are long-forgotten. In the mix for both the families and the children was a weekly summary of the news from Pathé. These black and white clips lasted about 5 minutes and were begun with a trademark crowing chicken.

British Pathé have just announced the uploading of some 85,000 films to YouTube.

Some of the best news stories of the time were first seen on the cinema screens and included the 1955 Le Mans disaster when 79 people were killed and the 1958 drowning of a pilot whose plane failed to land properly on HMS Victorious.

As well as those mentioned above, there are many other historic events recorded on film, such as Queen Victoria's funeral, the Wright Brothers first flight, and the Hindenburg Disaster. The page also has links to Pathé War Archives, Pathé Vintage Fashion and Pathé Sporting History.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.