WELCOME > SCHEDULE > EVENTS > SONS OF HEROES – 60TH ANNIVERSARY 

HEART OF HAWICK
THURSDAY 2 MAY
20:00 – 21:00 / 60′

THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT

This film has descriptive subtitles.

Content warning: contains depiction of violence, murder.

PROGRAMME NOTES
by Michael Pattison

The opening event of this year’s Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival is a special 60th anniversary screening of Hawick Film Group’s 1964 film Sons of Heroes. Preceded by a live performance by Hawick Saxhorn Band, the screening is also the world premiere of a newly digitised scan of the 8mm film, as part of Alchemy Film & Arts’ continued partnership with Hawick Film Group to secure a digital legacy for its rich back catalogue of films made in and about our town. 

Sons of Heroes was made to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the Battle of Hornshole, a triumphant episode in Hawick’s history that followed Scotland’s disastrous decimation, a year prior, at the hands of the English during the Battle of Flodden. With the earlier defeat resulting in the deaths of a third of Scotland’s army – including King James IV – the country’s borders were left particularly vulnerable. 

A year later, when news of a nearby encampment of English soldiers reached Hawick, the town’s young men – to whom James Hogg, in his 1819 ballad ‘Teribus ye teri odin’, referred as ‘sons of heroes slain at Flodden’ – gathered weapons and attacked the English, claiming their pennon. The victory is commemorated each year as part of Hawick’s Common Riding traditions. 

Framed by documentary coverage of the 1964 Common Riding, Sons of Heroes is as much a snapshot of Hawick six decades ago as it is a charming dramatisation of our town in 1514. Filming was undertaken in a spirit of generosity, community and experimentation, with the modest £80 budget – £1600 in today’s terms – supplemented by voluntary support from numerous Hawick clubs. 

The film received its first public screenings in Hawick’s Evergreen Hall – sales from which went towards Hawick Film Group’s acquisition of its premises on Croft Road, which it converted from a sweetie shop into a community-run 42-seat cinema still in operation today. The film’s production was led by Club Secretary and founder member Scott Renwick, who died aged 91 in January this year, and in whose memory and honour this screening is held.

With thanks to former Hawick Film Group President David Peacock, for his substantial contribution to Hawick’s rich film heritage, and to R3store Studios and Transfermagic for the film’s digital restoration.