Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Faltering steps
- 2 Dog's body
- 3 Night Mail
- 4 Bernard Shaw exposed
- 5 Harry Watt challenged by the Savings Bank
- 6 ‘In loco parentis’
- 7 Rungs of the ladder
- 8 The G.P.O. becomes the Crown Film Unit
- 9 A passenger of the Ancient and Tattered Airmen
- 10 No escape from a dreary chore
- 11 Not a remake of Drifters but all at sea
- 12 Blank despair
- 13 We walk the course
- 14 ‘Tally Ho.’ The hunt is on
- 15 ‘Testing … Testing’
- 16 Faltering steps, again
- 17 A non-starter for a start
- 18 ‘Dead slow ahead’
- 19 S.O.S. to the C. in C.
- 20 The Temeraire to the rescue
- 21 The white swan from Norway
- 22 How to round up the remnants
- 23 So, this is Hollywood!!
- 24 An assignment, at last
- 25 John Sullivan and Pinewood to the rescue
6 - ‘In loco parentis’
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Faltering steps
- 2 Dog's body
- 3 Night Mail
- 4 Bernard Shaw exposed
- 5 Harry Watt challenged by the Savings Bank
- 6 ‘In loco parentis’
- 7 Rungs of the ladder
- 8 The G.P.O. becomes the Crown Film Unit
- 9 A passenger of the Ancient and Tattered Airmen
- 10 No escape from a dreary chore
- 11 Not a remake of Drifters but all at sea
- 12 Blank despair
- 13 We walk the course
- 14 ‘Tally Ho.’ The hunt is on
- 15 ‘Testing … Testing’
- 16 Faltering steps, again
- 17 A non-starter for a start
- 18 ‘Dead slow ahead’
- 19 S.O.S. to the C. in C.
- 20 The Temeraire to the rescue
- 21 The white swan from Norway
- 22 How to round up the remnants
- 23 So, this is Hollywood!!
- 24 An assignment, at last
- 25 John Sullivan and Pinewood to the rescue
Summary
Then it was that John Grierson stepped into the breach, once more, on my behalf. I am permanently indebted to him not only because he gave me a start but for the patience and tolerance he showed as I slowly struggled out of the crysalis and tried to spread my wings a little bit. As I have said, he believed education could be the cure for everything. For this reason, he sent his young brother-in-law, John Taylor, who had photographed Song of Ceylon, to Glasgow University to do a course in something or other. Even if he didn't get a degree he would learn how to concentrate through enforced essay writing.
During a visit to the unit at Mousehole, Grierson saw my French homework on the table of the digs I was sharing with Harry and his wife Lulu. I was doing a correspondence course with Wolsey Hall, trying to make up for the loss of my school years. Grierson, so Harry told me, was impressed that I was making some sort of effort and magnanimously suggested that when the film was finished I should take three months off on my pay of thirty shillings a week, go to France and get a better command of the language. Not only was this a wonderful gesture but he spread the word that contributions would be most gratefully received by his ex-messenger boy, he being the first to stump up five pounds, a lot of money in 1936. Many senior members followed his kind example. It was, as I said, a very special unit.
Conveniently, an aged great-aunt, another Gulland who lived in Kidbrooke Park, died and left her grand nephews and nieces £200 each. On this and the unit's contributions I lived like a lord for over three months in Grenoble. Mercifully the pound was uniquely strong against the franc, something to do with Leon Blum and the Front Populaire. As a result, for £2.10.0 a week I was able to pay my pension and university and ‘High Life’ cigarettes, aptly named. I bought a ‘bike’ for a pound which took me to and from my lodgings with a wonderful Buscarlet family of Avenue D'Eybens on the Route Napoléon, to the University.
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- Information
- A Retake PleaseFilming Western Approaches, pp. 46 - 48Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999