A story of a previous pestilence to reflect on in the Covid crisis! In 1905 Lincoln was gripped by typhoid fever. The germs were in the tap water and killed both rich and poor. Filmmaker Andrew Blow tells the story with the help of letters and cards written at the time. They were sent to Alderman Thomas Smith of Newark to thank him for organising daily clean water supplies to Lincoln. The cache of mail brings the typhoid crisis and Edwardian Lincoln back to life. A hundred and thirty-one local people died and more than a thousand fell ill after contracting the disease from river-drawn tap water. “Lincoln and Typhoid” was Highly Commended in the Documentary Awards of the Institute of Videography. It explains how the epidemic led to Lincoln’s new water supply from Elkesley in Nottinghamshire in 1911 which the City still, in part, enjoys today. It also includes film of the Elkesley steam pumping engines of 1911. These fine engines were still going strong when a Lincoln Camera Club member filmed in 1951. (They worked on until 1973 when one blew up).  STREAM/DOWNLOAD OPTION FOR A CITY WITH TYPHOID
Supporting films (on the DVD) from around 1950 show the City Centre with the traffic and fashions of the time, Lincoln Races on the day of the Lincolnshire Handicap, the Spring Pleasure Fair, and Lincoln Model Engineering Club in Boultham Park. Hundreds of local people are seen.Harvest time in the 1940s and 50s, narrated by farmer Geoff Lidgett as he looked back at his own films, recalls farming just before rapid mechanisation. We see a traditional threshing machine, made by Marshalls of Gainsborough, at work. We see the traditional ways of making haystacks and potato pies, horse drawn seed drilling, and tractors of the time. This film delights all who have nostalgia for old-style farming. PRICE INCLUDES P & P.