Dating the race film

Original non-fiction-style practice text.

The town archive received a silent film of a road race in an unlabelled metal tin. A donor believed that her uncle had filmed it before leaving the district, but could not remember which year he moved. The film showed runners passing a shop, spectators leaning from windows and a prize being presented on a small platform. The archivist hoped to include it in an exhibition about the town's changing streets.

The first apparent clue was a calendar visible inside the shop. Its numbers became blurred when the image was enlarged, and the team could not establish whether the sheet displayed was current. A shop sign named a business which had traded for more than twenty years. Newspaper searches produced reports of several races following the same route, but the winning times had not been recorded on the film. The presentation platform was rebuilt in much the same form each year. Even the striped awning which seemed distinctive appeared in photographs across a decade.

People who came to a viewing recognised faces but disagreed about their ages. One remembered the tall runner as a neighbour; another identified the same person as that neighbour's brother. The prize-giver's badge was too small to read, while the absence of sound removed any chance of hearing an announcement. Clothing offered a broad period rather than a particular date, because uniforms and best coats were worn for years. The donor's uncle had also lent his camera to friends, so his departure would not necessarily establish the latest possible filming date.

Finally, the surviving film was not a complete record. Two sections had been joined, and the team could not assume that both showed the same race. A nearby building visible in one section was hidden by spectators in the other. The archivist decided to display a date range and explain the uncertainty. Visitors would still see a lively event, but the label would not turn an attractive guess into a fact merely because an exhibition needed a short caption.

According to the text, summarise the difficulties the archive team faced in establishing when the race film was made.

Use continuous writing, not note form, and use your own words as far as possible. Your summary should not be more than 120 words. Up to 10 marks are available for reading and up to 5 marks for writing.