Mystery of the camera film hidden for 80 years

THE mystery of an 80-year-old undeveloped film found inside an antique shop camera has finally been solved, after a public appeal for clues.

- By Chris Riches

Amateur photographer Oliver Barnes, 20, bought the No1 Pocket Kodak for £25 and took it to experts in Salisbury, Wiltshire, to get its film developed.

This revealed black-and-white images – some showed crowds in the 1940s packing the streets of Chipping Sodbury, and one of two gents in academic gowns on a bridge.

A nationwide appeal helped Oliver discover the crowds were flocking to glimpse the biggest news story of the day in 1948.

The Good family, from Westerleigh, near the Gloucestershire town, made headlines when mum Margaret delivered the world’s first quadruplets to survive a caesarean section, and the image shows locals turning out to cheer the babies' return from hospital in Bristol. Meanwhile, the bridge in the other picture was identified as St Andrews golf course’s famous 18th-hole Swilcan Bridge, which dates back more than 700 years.