Harry Birrell – Films of Love and War

This documentary feature is made from a treasure trove of footage taken by Harry Birrell during his life. The narration is read from Harry’s diaries in this authentic and unique piece of cinema. It travels from Arran to London to India and Nepal, and spans a couple of decades. Harry has a video camera and documents his own life from the 30s onwards through the war. It is a great snapshot from the British past and Harry seems a quintessentially British chap – even though he’s from Paisley.

He is in London in the late 1930s and we get a glimpse into that world when young men wore suits and smoked pipes, and rowed boats in Hyde Park of a sunny afternoon. There is the shadow of war hanging over peacetime Britain, which is otherwise aglow with picnics in Sussex (complete with frying pan!) and day trips to the seaside. As Harry’s mother tells him:

“The last war did us no good; it just lost us the best of our men”. Harry lost his father in World War One.

He moves to Arran and romances a local girl. There is a great jazzy soundtrack in the movie, and Harry gets really good footage wherever he goes. Just before war breaks out, he realises he is going to be called up so volunteers. Soon he gets sailing orders to go to Bombay (as it was known at the time), and sails there from Arran across the Atlantic watching out constantly for German submarines and air raids.

He films the journey from India across dessert and up hills, and finally to the Burmese border to the Ghurkhas with whom Harry is to spend the rest of the war as a Commander of a battalion. He is very taken by the men and enjoys the first part of the war a great deal – hiking and swimming in lagoons. But when Japan joins the war things change. Harry plots a way through the Himalayas in case of a Japanese invasion, so embarks on a walking tour of Tibet, over mountains and through forests with elephants.

After this Harry lands a cushy office job in Calcutta but he can’t stand being cooped up so volunteers for the front, much to the amazement of his superior officer who calls him a fool. So Harry goes to the front and soon finds himself surrounded by the Imperial Japanese army.

History is always more alive looking through the eyes of one person, and it was a pleasure to see it through Harry Birrell’s eyes.