A FASCINATING home movie has shown Bournemouth as it was almost half a century ago.

Lionel Fynn shot a short film to capture the town centre, gardens and seafront on a warm day in 1967.

But after editing the footage, he wasn’t to see it again for more than 40 years – because it was shot for a pen friend in Australia.

He said: “I was in correspondence with a guy in Adelaide and he said ‘I’ll swap you a film of Adelaide if you will send me a film of Bournemouth – I want to see the transport, the shops and the features of the town’.

“So he did that for Adelaide and I did it for Bournemouth and we swapped films.”

Around three years ago, the film came back into Lionel’s possession after a meeting with his pen pal, Christopher Gill.

“I went out to meet him not that long ago and he said ‘I can’t see that film any more because I haven’t got a projector’. I said ‘Give it back to me and I’ll get a DVD copy’.”

The film was shot on Standard 8 colour film, with Lionel carefully recording landmarks, the entertainment playing locally and the prices of goods in the shops.

Lionel, who founded Bournemouth law firm Horsey Lightly Fynn – now part of Laceys – was a film-maker who frequently covered weddings.

He later founded Plato Video, which is now run by his sons Harry and Charles, making wedding and corporate videos and transferring films and videotapes to DVD.

They have transferred the footage to digital and it can be viewed on the Daily Echo’s website.

Although it runs less than two minutes, the film is a fascinating record of the town.

Among the highlights are:

The Gaumont cinema, now the Odeon, on Westover Road. Only one film is advertised on the hoardings – because the cinema still had a single auditorium, with a huge domed ceiling and 2,300 seats. It would be another two years before the Gaumont re-opened as a twin-screen cinema.

The film showing that day in 1967 was the Walt Disney comedy Monkeys, Go Home! – a comedy about chimpanzees being hired to work in an olive grove. The stars were Maurice Chevalier, Yvette Mimieux and Dean Jones.

The Pavilion. Headlining at the Pavilion at the time were comic folk act Adge Cutler and the Wurzels. In those days, the Wurzels were the backing group for Cutler, and had become famous the previous year with their single Drink Up Thy Zider. The band’s success would continue after Cutler’s death in 1974, with The Combine Harvester topping the charts in 1976.

The Pavilion was also advertising Show Time with Des O’Connor, Kenneth McKellar and Jack Douglas, as well as other famous names of the day such as Joe Loss & His Band and Singers and Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen in the Ballroom, plus tea dances with Syd Fay and his Big Band Music.

The Pier, with a pleasure cruise approaching. Dick Emery was appearing in the farce Chase Me Comrade for the summer season at the Pier Theatre and on other nights there was “music for everyone” with Rawicz and Landauer.

In recent years, the theatre has given way to indoor climbing attraction RockReef.

The ice rink. Alongside the choice of films at the Gaumont and ABC in Westover Road, there was the popular Ice Follies at the Westover Ice Rink. The rink continued to be a popular destination in the town until its closure in 1991.

The Pier Approach Swimming Baths. The grand swimming baths, home to the town’s Aqua Shows, were a popular attraction in the town until the opening of another pool at the BIC sealed their fate in 1984. The building was demolished in 1986.

The baths are seen from the pier, so viewers can make up their own minds about whether the building was comparable to the Waterfront Imax which was to be built there in 1998.

Bournemouth Square. A trolleybus is among the cars negotiating the roundabout in the Square. The trolleybuses would make their last trip through the town only two years later. The Square was largely pedestrianised from 1992.

Commercial Road. This is also seen before its pedestrianisation. Marks & Spencer is still there today, but neighbouring Bealesons is long gone.

The footage is fascinating today, but it suffered a hold-up in 1967 which might suggest it nearly didn’t make it into Mr Gill’s possession.

Lionel recalls: “At the time, he rang me up and said ‘The film has been confiscated. Customs have got it or the police have got it and they think it’s a blue movie’.

“He said ‘That’s because they saw there’s a woman in it’ – I said, ‘That’s my mother!’”