Brenda's Film Channel
Considering the number of appearances Brenda made around the world throughout the 1970s and 80s, there is surprisingly little film footage still available. We have gathered together everything we could find, and made it available on an exclusive Youtube channel.
The quality is, naturally, variable - some of this material is over 40 years old, and it includes the full range from professional TV footage to amateur recordings. We have done our best to improve the quality of the film and the sound, and we think the astonishing range of Brenda's voice is well represented here.
Each longer film or recording is playable as a single file, but has also been split into individual performances or songs.
One quirk of youtube is its insistence on displaying our list of film clips in random order - so I'm attaching a full list of what is now available, and you can search for anything you specifically want to see or hear.
Here's a sample selection of the clips available, with explanations of colour coding:
-
The oblong black and white clips are from a recording by Three S Films of the Memorial Concert held in St Johns Hall in Penzance in June 1984 - following Brenda's death on March 11th 1994. The concert was attended by many of Brenda's musician friends, most known and loved by Piper's Folk Club audiences for years. (Just a quick reminder - Brenda does not appear in this...)
-
The light green backgrounds will show live musical performances or Brenda telling yarns.
-
The bright yellow icons are audiobook clips, with me reading short extracts from Brenda's biography 'Brenda - For the Love of Cornwall'.
-
Blue icons will show Brenda singing a song and interviewing local people about topics of local interest, extracts taken from two half-hour programmes produced by BBC South West: 'Cornwall the Land I Love' and 'Pasties and Cream'.
-
There is also a recording of a Brenda Film event held at Porthleven Old Cornwall Society in January 2024.