The Christmas Tree

Modern viewers will find it hard to believe their eyes. Three children hitchhiking to London. Their parents, when they find out, look slightly worried, maybe. One of the children, aged about 5, steps in front of a vehicle to persuade ithe driver to stop. They get in a car driven by two men who it turns out are bank robbers. Then they end up on a military firing range, from where they are given a lift in an Army lorry then passed, by Army personnel no less, to a random lorry driver. The 5-year old wanders off. Thus was made after the Brady-Hindkey case. It is unbelievable in its attitude to what even in 1966 must have been real risks to unaccompanied children. Bizarre. Yet reviewers on this page are calling it 'charming', which is also bizarre.

I started watching this with no knowledge of it, usually the best stance, and was quite quickly engaged with the simple premise and the quaint charm of the eloquent siblings in the protagonist roles.

The title says it all, it's about a tree, and what that represented to the modest, materially underprivileged or sick children of the time. It's a real shot in the arm of jollity, good-will and good, honest graft.

There's a constant sense of the children really enjoying these roles and the youngest revels in the freedom he has to muck about, it's never stale, short in duration and pretty damn difficult not to be absolutely charmed by nearly every scene.

Pure classic of English filmmaking.

Some kids promise to get a proper Christmas tree for the patients in the children's ward of a London hospital. This film follows their adventures on the way.

This is a charming little film, not atypical of the CFF's output. It smacks of Enid Blyton, yet is set in more real and believable situations. For anyone of the right age and/or from that part of the world it is something of a nostalgia-fest, with scenes of 1960s Britain that are not quite lost forever.

Locations I recognised were Hambleden weir, Hambleden village, and Round Hill, Aldershot. Hambleden weir and the village are virtually unchanged, and the enormous (30' tall, forty ton) statue of Wellington (which was originally erected on Hyde Park corner) still sits atop round hill in Aldershot. It looks OK in the film but had lapsed into a poor state more recently and was refurbished in 2004. It is no longer mainly surrounded by open heathland. Sadly you can't wander between the horse's legs as the children do. Where I grew up there was lots of heathland used by the Army and for the most part they tolerated the local kids (who treated the whole area as their own playground) rather well.

All rather charming and jolly; 8/10 from me.

Although I'm well aware of the Children's Film Foundation, I don't recalling seeing any of their actual movies (although I suppose I watched some when I was at school, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember). Thankfully the excellent Talking Pictures TV channel here in the UK has acquired the rights to a batch, so I can now play catch up.

The Christmas Tree is, unsurprisingly, a Christmas-themed short film, made in black and white and on a low budget which means lots of shooting outdoors. A trio of kids decide to embark on an epic odyssey to transport a large Christmas tree some 30 miles (by hand) to a children's hospital in London. The viewer follows them as they embark on the journey and get involved in various scrapes along the way.

What struck me about this film is just how wholesome and engaging it is. The Christmas Tree takes place in a bygone era where every adult on the street was friendly and kind and willing to help out, and kids were far from bratty but instead spent their time doing stuff for other people. Most likely this world never existed, but this film was made long enough ago for it to feel like a lost world of nostalgia. Technically, the production is proficient, with crisp photography and plenty of humour to keep things moving. The cast is good and includes a pre-fame Brian Blessed in a minor role, and the kids aren't annoying, which makes a big impact. All over, I loved it.

A well-made and entertaining little film, its real value is as a glimpse of a Britain almost disappeared. As a child of the 60s I find it fascinating to revisit a world I'd almost forgotten - Zodiak police cars, children wearing anoraks, wide open carriageways and a smaller, simpler world seen through the eyes of Enid Blyton-esque scalliwags with a lot of 'pluck'. Priceless.