Winifred Holmes

Winifred Holmes, OBE was a well-known journalist, poet, film critic, playwright, film director and producer before leaving those creative careers behind to devote much of her time to the campaign for women’s rights across the world and her work with the Women’s Council.

Born on 7 April 1903 in Paddington, London, Winifred Alice Young was the only child of Matthew and Alice Young (née Forbes) – and it was through her parents that she identified as Scottish. Raised overseas due to her father’s work for the Indian Civil Service, Winifred returned to England to finish her education, becoming a nursery teacher and living and travelling independently for a time. In 1931, she married John ‘Jack’ or ‘JB’ Bruce Holmes ‘against everybody’s advice’, as he was out of a job at the time (Radio Times 1937, 75), eventually having three children with him.

While living in the Chelsea area of London, Winifred became a prolific journalist, starting as nursery correspondent for the Evening Standard before moving into film criticism. By 1936, she was a regular contributor to World Film News and Television Progress (a monthly film magazine published in Edinburgh) and the national film publication Sight and Sound. Her feature articles and critiques reveal an interest in foreign film, especially Indian cinema, and documentary filmmaking.

Alongside this, Winifred was a noted writer and poet; a contemporary of writers such as Eliot, Isherwood, Auden and Sitwell. She published two collections of poetry (Variation on a Metaphysic and other poems,1933; Peace Without Honour, 1937) and wrote verse for a made-for-television documentary film about book publication, Cover to Cover (Alexander Shaw. 1936) that featured T.S. Eliot and Julien Huxley. By 1939, she had expanded into non-fiction with First Baby, a practical guide for first time mothers up to the baby’s second birthday. She would go on to publish several more books throughout her lifetime.

In parallel with these activities, Winifred had a career in radio production. On 11 January 1937, her radio play The Invisibles (about a Durham miner) premiered to positive reviews. It was quickly followed by Jane Austen in the West (1938) a historical fiction play set during a time when the real Jane Austen visited several resorts in the West Country in 1799. Around 1941, Holmes recruited into the Home Intelligence department of the Ministry of Information by Mary Adams. Working as a home correspondent, Holmes would report on the state of morale in London during the Second World War. It is said that she travelled around the city on bicycle, reporting back on her interactions with locals and what she saw. It was also around this time that she became a regular writer and producer for the radio shows Wartime Cookery Book as well as The Kitchen Front which both aired on the BBC from 1939-1945.

After the war, Winfred moved from radio into film and television production, continuing to explore her interest in documentary, especially educational, technical or scientific documentary films. In 1946 and 1947, she produced a series of informational films about electricity, following this in 1948 with her directorial debut Consider the Carpet, produced by Oswald Skilbeck. Her second film as director, Growing Girl (1949: often known as Girls Growing Up), put her more firmly on the map, winning first prize in the ‘Physiology’ category at the Venice Film Festival. Winifred was praised for approaching the taboo subject matter of female adolescence in a ‘simple and dignified way,’ (Birmingham Daily Gazette 1949, 4).

In the 1950s, she wrote an episode of the flagship BBC children’s show For the Children (‘Fate of the City’, October 1951); wrote and directed the film A Brother for Susan (1952), again with producer Oswald Skilbeck; wrote the children’s short film Bouncer Breaks Up (1953) and the documentary A Day of One’s Own (1956) for the Women’s Institute. She also co-directed the Luxembourg made production Décembre, mois des enfants (1956) with Henri Storck about the ‘December traditions in five European countries,’ (Décembre, Mois Des Enfants (S) (1956), n.d.). That would be her last credited film work until she directed Cruel Kindness in 1968.

Passionate about women’s rights and wellbeing, Winifred became much more involved with her work with the Women’s Council across this time period. She became vice-chairman in 1957, served two separate terms as Chairman (1958-59; 1962-1967), elected President of the Women’s Council, and awarded a DBE. Her husband Jack died in 1968 and shortly thereafter she moved to Nepal, working in Kathmandu for a brief time, before returning to England in 1971.

Awarded the OBE In 1972 (for her continued and dedicated work with the Women’s Council), Winifred spent much of the 1970s and 1980s traveling across the world championing women’s rights as a representative of the Women’s Council. In 1991 at age 88, she retired from her work with the Women’s Council; Winifred died in 1995 at the age of 92.

Selected Filmography

Cover to Cover (1936)

Consider the Carpet (1948)

Growing Girls (1949)

For the Children (series, 1946-1952, episode “Fate of the City”)

A Brother for Susan (1952)

Bouncer Breaks Up (1953)

A Day of One’s Own (1956)

Décembre, mois des enfants (1956)

Cruel Kindness (1968)

Radio programmes

Other Women’s Lives (1937)

The Invisibles (1937)

Jane Austen in the West (1938)

Wartime Cookery Book (1939-1945)

The Kitchen Front (1939-1945)

Published Books

Variation on a Metaphysic Theme and other poems. London, The Unicorn Press, 1933.
Peace Without Honour. London, Duckworth, 1937.

First Baby. London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1939.

Tekhi's Hunting. A story of the Naga Hills, illus. Jack Matthew. London, G. Bell & Sons, 1941.

An Introduction to Indian Art. London, David Marlowe for the Royal India Society, 1948.
The Voyage of the Indian Brig, illus. Jack Matthew. London, G. Bell & Sons, 1949.

Seven Adventurous Women, illus. J. S. Goodall. London, G. Bell & Sons, 1953.
Orient. A survey of films produced in countries of Arab and Asian culture. London, British Film Institute, 1959.
She was Queen of Egypt. Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Shagaret el Dor, illus. Arthur Hagg. London, G. Bell & Sons, 1959.

Bibliography

Birmingham Daily Gazette. 1949, 13 September 1949.

Civil Military Gazette Lahore. 1941. ‘From London to the Far East’, 7 June 1941.

Décembre, Mois Des Enfants (S) (1956). n.d. Accessed 25 March 2025. https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film466209.html.

England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915

England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005

Radio Times. 1937. ‘10.45 “OTHER WOMEN’S LIVES” Winifred Holmes’, 28 May 1937.

Raymond, Harold. 1936. ‘“ERRING OR 'AM?” Harold Raymond of Chatto & Windus on the Publie Relations Film’. World Film News, 1936.

The Times. 1995. ‘Obituary: Winifred Holmes’, 20 September 1995.