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The Heritage Centre was contacted recently by someone searching for some old film footage in which his wife's grandfather, a retired sheet metal worker and recently widowed, had once appeared. In the film the grandfather, then a young man, was seen riding his motorbike for what he remembered being a public information film made shortly after World War Two, though all he now had to show for it were three stills taken during filming. These gave few clues as to the film's identity, but fortunately one of them showed a factory sign for G.A. Harvey & Co, a firm based in Charlton, London SE7, and this had led the enquirer to us. Even more fortunately we were able to identify the film as it had recently been digitised by London Screen Archives, having remained an un-viewed reel of 16mm for many years. It is called Unguarded Moment and was made by the Greenwich Local Safety Unit. In it, three workers leave the factory at the end of the day to go home. They travel along numerous local streets still recognizable today, one by tram, another by bicycle and a third (called 'Johnny' in the film) by motorbike. Each takes unnecessary risks to get home quickly, and the film ends with a memorable twist and a stern warning from the narrator about road safety - a classic of the genre. Happily, we were able to supply the family with a copy.

Jonathan Partington, Research Services Officer