Calling St Helens
‘Name: Unknown Unknown (Please do get in touch if you know this person)’
Below is Issue 58 of “Calling Blighty,” a series of short films made in 1944-46 of individual servicemen and women in the Far East sending personal messages home to their family and friends. The first man up, the cocky one winning all the bottles of beer at darts, is my granddad. Cut to 9-00 for the piano sing-a-long, there he is again, right in the middle, the one whom they all gather around, the one with all the quips.
How strange to see this page, in which next to my grandfather’s image are the words ‘unknown unknown unknown unknown …’ referring to first and second names, rank and other details. He is not unknown, not now and not then,. He is Joseph Critchley, Burma Star, my granddad, and I remember him very well indeed, and I’m now in touch with the people in charge of the “Message Home” project, North West Film Archive, at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Issue 58:
This is from my own copy of the film.
And this is a much better, restored, version at the North West Film Archive, Manchester Metropolitan University
We had this film on video years ago, and I arranged to convert it to DVD for my dad’s 80th birthday (22nd Nov 2017). It was very moving seeing my granddad again. That’s all I can say. There were no words, other than praise for the piano player at the end. There’s a line from one of my favourite songs that is apt here, “a sad funny feeling, now I’m older than him.” (Amanda MacBroom, Old Errol Flynn). It’s a very strange feeling indeed that we are now all older than him, and yet he remains the larger than life elder that we look up to, the man who seemed able to do everything, who always encouraged us to go into the world and give it a go, and not be intimidated by anything or anyone.
'To produce an issue of Calling Blighty, the men – and a very few women (who served in very small numbers in the Far East) – would be brought together either in the studio or in their stations and camps. Crucially, they had to be from the same town, but they were not necessarily from the same regiments and often did not know each other…When the individual messages had been delivered everyone would get together at the end to say cheerio, or sing a chorus. The soldiers families were invited to local cinemas screenings to enjoy a glimpse of their relatives -– some of whom had tragically died by the time the films reached home.’
I’m being asked for details, rank etc. He was a sergeant. I remember seeing his medals back in the seventies, and presume they are still somewhere or other. I don’t care for wars, flags, uniforms, empires, abstract idols and false collectivities, none of it is worth a life. I’m more interested in analysing these things as surrogates for the real meaning and belonging we crave, and in breaking these cycles of reprisal and counter-reprisal with identities and belongings that satisfy the cosmic longing for meaning. We can put names to numbers, and humanize those caught up in the maelstrom that was the twentieth century. We are still caught up in it. People who know me know what I think of war, nationalism, imperialism – an utter abomination. But it is easy to moralize at a safe distance in time and place. I've set out my thoughts elsewhere.
My granddad was a ‘head-up, chest-out, short-back-and-sides, clean shirt, polished shoes’ kind of man. He could be blunt and abrasive, but he was straight and honest, and had no time for cowering and cringing in corners. You face the world, and if there’s anything wrong and in need of changing, you do what you can to change it. If you think the world is in a mess now, read the history books, it has been a few times, and it only gets better if people show the nerve and nous to stand together in common cause and fight to make it better. He seemed such a big man when I was little. I see him now as he really was, just a simple, ‘ordinary’ man like all the others, caught up in extraordinary events and processes much bigger than them. We are still caught up in these collective forces, and stand in need of the collective means and mechanisms, institutional, psychological and ethical, enabling us to rein those destructive, irresponsible forces in. And he still seems pretty big to me, not for what he was, but for who he was. He wasn’t a soldier, he was a bricklayer to the end, a builder, better employed on constructive projects. I remember seeing him working outdoors in the rain, on a building site in town, smiling and joking and shouting as ever, but looking so very old and frail. I’d never seen him like that. I thought he was indestructible, even when I visited him in the hospital. He would have been 60. He died in October 1976, aged 63. Which seemed impossible at the time. I inherited his rocking chair, which I loved to bits (I always have a rocker to this day). And when, years later, my grandmother found out that I was a keen dart player, she gave me his darts in their wooden case (I’m badly out of practice these days, the darts are battered now, but the case is still in good shape). I won the darts competition in America! I played with a real Cherokee too! My granddad would be proud indeed.
But it shows just how easily flesh and blood individuals with names and personalities and relations, belonging to others and known to their communities, can be swept up in and swept aside by impersonal mechanisms, systems and processes that, in the words of Max Weber, proceed ‘without regard to persons.’ And that is the question that interests me, how ‘ordinary’ men and women who are no more enemies of the complete strangers they are organised to fight than we are today can end up embroiled in mass total war organised from above. How is that, when it comes to planning and organising for the long-range common good, for peaceful and productive social purposes, we are met with obstruction and inertia, but when it comes to destruction and violence and death, the most ‘libertarian’ of states ditch personal liberty and put the whole of society on a war footing?
More details on the project
‘Calling Blighty - A Message HOME
‘Calling Blighty is a series of short films made in 1944-46 of individual servicemen and women in the Far East sending personal messages home to their family and friends. These poignant filmed messages were shown in local cinemas, to the mixed laughter and tears of the specially invited audiences. A Message Home is a project to try to find as many families and veterans as possible, to bring them together to show the films again, and to tell their stories. Of nearly 400 issues made, only 64 are known to survive.’
Alongside the attempt to trace people, a new artists’ film by Steve Hawley has been made, summing up these unique and compelling films. They are partly stilted, occasionally emotional, but mostly stiff upper lip testimonies, filmed direct to camera often in one take - sometimes funny, and always very moving. In a way, they predict video communications such as Skype, but also offer a window on the understated courage of servicemen who had endured the long separation from their home – in both time and space – often since the start of the war.’
‘A Message HOME is an opportunity to open up this extraordinary and rare record of the long-distance communications from the Forgotten Army to their families back in Blighty.’
How and why the films were made
How the collection arrived at the NWFA
https://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/blighty/background.php
We had this film on video years ago, and I arranged to convert it to DVD for my dad’s birthday. He hadn’t seen it for years. It was very moving seeing my granddad again. That’s all I can say. There were no words, other than praise for the piano player. There’s a line from one of my favourite songs that is apt here, “a sad funny feeling, now I’m older than him.” (Amanda MacBroom, Old Errol Flynn). It’s a very strange feeling that we are now all older than him. But he still seems to be the larger than life elder that we look up to, the man who seemed able to do everything, who always encouraged us to go into the world and give it a go, and not be intimidated by anything or anyone. It worked! Once you start running in life, you never stop, he said. I put it to the test. He would threaten to eat the little animals gathered in the back garden, rescued from the local lads who would take them from the park, and to be returned to the brook, toads, frogs, newts. He said he used to eat them in the jungle. When he called, I’d go into the garden in preparation to fight him off in case he was hungry. I would have done too. Looking back now, I think he may have been pulling my leg. And he loved looking after the family budgies. And anyone who loves budgies is fine by me.
Professor Steve Hawley, who is making the new film, said: “These few remaining films are a unique picture of 600 young Manchester servicemen and two women in the Far East around VJ day. As a research resource this is priceless, and as a human document, the spirit and humour of the soldiers shines through in a very moving way.”
‘It’s a collection described as “gold dust” by the North West Film Archive and now dozens of forgotten messages filmed by soldiers in the 1940s will be aired on Channel 4.
‘The soldiers filmed were the 14th Army, known as The Forgotten Army, because they were sent to the Far East. They were poorly equipped and didn’t get home leave.
Re-discovered film footage gives emotional insight into life of soldiers fighting in the Far East
‘TO A generation that has grown used to instant communication, phone calls and even Skyping, the patience needed to wait three months for film footage of your loved one fighting in the Far East seems almost unimaginable. But for the families of soldiers fighting against the Japanese in Burma and India in the Second World War, the near-intolerable wait was worth it for a glimpse of their father, husband or son or on a cinema screen.’
‘As the focus at home was on fighting Hitler in Europe, the soldiers in Burma were largely overlooked, eventually becoming known as the “Forgotten Army”.
World War II footage of British soldiers in Burma sending messages to their families back home. The first man up is my grandfather, Joseph Critchley.
'Calling Blighty is a series of short films made in 1944-46 of individual servicemen and women in the Far East sending personal messages home to their family and friends.
Of nearly 400 issues made, only 64 are known to survive. Of these, 26 feature service personnel from the Greater Manchester and wider North West areas.
'To produce an issue of Calling Blighty, the men – and a very few women (who served in very small numbers in the Far East) – would be brought together either in the studio or in their stations and camps. Crucially, they had to be from the same town, but they were not necessarily from the same regiments and often did not know each other…When the individual messages had been delivered everyone would get together at the end to say cheerio, or sing a chorus. The soldiers families were invited to local cinemas screenings to enjoy a glimpse of their relatives -– some of whom had tragically died by the time the films reached home.
Messages Home: Lost Films of the British Army
Oxford Scientific Films (OSF), in association with Manchester’s North West Film Archive and the Imperial War Museum, has produced a 1 x 60’ special called Messages Home: Lost Films of the British Army for Channel 4. The film celebrates Britain’s 14th Army by revealing unique filmed messages they sent home to their nearest and dearest. As the focus was on fighting Hitler in Europe, the soldiers in Burma were largely overlooked, eventually becoming known as the “Forgotten Army”. Now, this extraordinary re-discovered footage provides a unique insight into an often unknown part of the Second World War.
For these troops, fighting a savage battle against the Japanese in Burma and India, home leave wasn’t possible, post was slow, and sometimes letters didn’t get home at all. Some of the men left behind pregnant wives or young children who would barely recognise them by the time they came home. Others would bid farewell to sweethearts never knowing whether they would see each other again… Many would become heroes but never spoke of their experiences once they returned to Blighty. In addition to fighting a seemingly invincible foe, the British soldiers were at risk from other enemies hiding in the jungle. The worst was disease. 40% of the 14th Army suffered from malaria. Typhus and dysentery were also rife. Out of every thousand troops, 700 fell victim to disease of one kind or another.
With morale low, the Ministry of Defence decided upon a scheme to provide a much-needed boost for the soldiers in the Far East and their families back home. A cinematic scheme called ‘Calling Blighty’ sent camera crews to film with the troops in Asia.
Some 8,000 men and a few women sent personal messages home to loved ones. Families and friends back in Britain were invited to watch them at special cinema screenings and catch a glimpse of their relatives on screen… Tragically many of those featured would already be dead by the time the films reached home.
But what happened to these films? Many have just disappeared. Only 48 of the 391 editions have ever been found… 23 of them in Manchester.