A FILM inspired by a photo of a Carlisle girl in Victorian times will be premiered soon.

Pictures taken when the crew were filming in the city earlier this year have been released.

Many local people took part in the crowd scenes staged in the city centre. Filming was also done on the Solway Firth.

Writer and director Steve Baldwin came up with the idea when researching a Victorian themed social historical paper last year.

"I came across the Victorian image of the young girl in the Carlisle Hiring Fair. It really struck me as being quite sad.

"As a scriptwriter I just had to try to find out who she was and what happened to her, if she still had living relatives in the Carlisle area.

My search was unsuccessful, there's no documentation other than that the image came from the Tullie House museum collection."

And so he created his own story - and a film followed. It focuses on Cathy, a young girl from a poor family that was sent to work in a 'big house'. She went to a hiring fair in Carlisle Market Square.

The film follows her as she settles into her life in service, employed by a doctor's wife who is an active campaigner for the suffrage movement and welfare champion.

Steve said: "The uplifting story told by Cathy is a short period drama and also a socially historically documented educational tool. I'm hoping schools and colleges will consider including Cathy's story in their history lessons."

The crew filmed in Carlisle in March. "A lot of local actors helped us to recreate the market square scene to perfection on a cold, wet and dreary Sunday at the end of March," said Steve.

"We have included a lot of dramatic drone footage into the shoot, showing the beautiful Cumbrian scenery to tie this in with the locality of where the image was originally taken.

"We are hoping to have the film ready to premiere in Carlisle around the middle of the summer. "

Steve is also the writer and director behind The Ballad of Lucy Sands, the tragic true tale of a young orphan whose body was found hidden under cobbles in Workington in 1881. Following lots of Covid-related delays, the crew hopes to complete filming this summer.