The early years of the Twentieth Century also saw the rise in the two mass entertainment industries which would go on to dominate English recreation for the next 100 years – cinema and football. The unique archive images from the Odeon Cinema Collection, shows how the new technology of cinema was quickly embraced by the masses. It also shows the immense crowds that football was already attracting – encapsulated by a sea of flat capped men `sardined’ together on the terraces of a football ground.

At the other end of the social spectrum we see the River Thames at Henley packed with boats for the Regatta, and hunters chasing down a fox. Most of all we see a nation beginning to break free from the shackles of industrialisation and the horrors of two world wars, beginning enjoy itself.