Colleagues: Ian Grant – Movietone

Ian Grant came to British Movietone News in 1962, he was my colleague until I left the company in 1964.  We remained friends until he died in 1981.  Ian James Grant was born in Edinburgh in 1917 and was called up for military service in 1940, initially spending two and a half years with the Royal Scots as a Lance-Corporal.  He saw action in Northern France shortly after his conscription and was at Dunkirk in June 1940.

Colleagues: Dick Davies – Movietone

During this period at Movietonews, the late forties, there was a great deal of change.  All those who had been called up during the war were returning to take up their careers again.

One of these was C. F. W. Davies, known as Dick Davies.  Dick had worked in the accounts department before the war and he now returned to accounts. This was his legal right.

Colleagues: Greville Kent – Movietone

Greville Maud Lingard Kent was an assistant editor (Cutter) at British Movietone News.  He was conscripted into the Royal Navy early in the war and served on board the Armed Merchant Cruiser the RMS Dunottar Castle which had been converted in 1942.  The ship was used on the notorious Murmansk convoy route where very heavy losses were incurred.

Colleagues: Norman Dickson

Norman Dickson was a close colleague of mine from 1967 until 1976.  He was born in 1911 and was some seventeen years older than me, but we got on well.

Norman was a Scotsman from Edinburgh.  He had a curious accent which was basically an Edinburgh accent which had been influenced by him spending some time in the Caribbean.  He was sometimes mistaken for an American.  However, he was able to use a variety of phrases which one might expect to come only from a Scot.

Colleagues: John Jackson – The Remittance Man

One day around 1958, Peter Maund, Deputy Head of News at GTV9, Melbourne, called me to say that he had a visitor who had come in with some film and would I like to see it.  I went down to a projection room to meet this man.  He was a dapper sort of fellow.  He was short but had black wavy hair.  I guessed he was in his mid forties.   He introduced himself as John Jackson.  He was English.

Colleagues: Jimmy Humphries – Movietone

In 1962 Movietonews was established at Rank Laboratories, Denham and had been since December 1961.

About this time, there was an addition to the camera staff at Denham.  Jimmy Humphries, who had been the Movietone cameraman based in New Brighton, had decided he wanted to end his career in or around London.

Jimmy had been base up North for years and it was always a mystery as to why he would transfer to Denham only a few years before retirement.

Colleagues: Paul Wyand

I worked with, or worked close by, Paul Wyand from 1945 to 1956 and from 1961 to 1967.  He was a gentleman and thoroughly deserved the accolade of being the finest newsreel cameraman of his day.

He specialised in the “Swing” shot whereby he would follow a fast moving vehicle, or animal, keeping a precise distance between the subject and the edge of frame.  This skill was obtained by practice and dedication.  However, he was a great cameraman in other ways at a time when there were no production managers, assistants or fixers to help and certainly no journalists.  Paul made all his own arrangements and everything required of a film crew was achieved by him and his soundman.  In that respect, it was the same for all the newsreels cameramen.

Colleagues: Ron E. Collins

Ron E. Collins started his career in 1958 with Rank Screen Services.  First he was an office boy, but later he trained as a model animation cameraman at Rank Studios in Hammersmith.

The following year, he joined Paul Barralet Productions, a well-known, industrial documentary film production company, as a trainee assistant cameraman.

Colleagues: Richard S. Clark – UPMT

Richard Skrede Clark was born May 30^th, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois.  He gained a BA degree, in 1937, from the University of Michigan in History and Political Science.

Between 1937 and 1940, he was a credit investigator, a travelling salesman and the editor of a weekly paper.

In August 1940, he joined United Press based in Chicago and Indianapolis where he worked as a reporter and sub-editor. From August 1941 to December 1945, he was enlisted in the U.S. Army rising from Private Soldier to 1^st Lieutenant in the Infantry.

Colleagues: Gerald Lyons

When I arrived at ABV2, Melbourne, in 1958, Gerald Lyons was a Talks Officer.

We worked together on a number of documentary productions, most notably “Operation Crowflight” in 1960.

Gerald’s time on ABC television was extensive and varied but, his work as Talks Officer and then producer and presenter, was just an episode in what has been a varied and interesting life.