Dream Repairman. Jim BSL Clark
soon I realised that I had to develop an inner life. My mind became a fortress. Generally I enjoyed school life, so unlike home life, which intruded when term was over and the holidays started. Before school, my natural habitat had been the nursery, which was my universe with Nanny Ada when I was small. Now it became my first home cinema.
The spin off from Father’s home movies came with a Christmas gift of immense potential that he gave me in 1941. It was a 9.5 mm Pathé Ace projector, together with some short comedies and, best of all, a complete print of Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail. From this, without any doubt, came my permanent and lifelong interest in film editing, for I hand cranked my way through many screenings of this silent classic. The sound was added later and was not necessary for an appreciation of the montage. Even at the early age of ten, I began, slowly, to understand something about the rhythm of the cuts. I couldn’t have put it quite like that, but I was aware of the cuts and fascinated by the construction of the images into scenes that had suspense and tension. I remember my nursery with those images flickering on the wall.
The Pathé Ace must have been handed to many children of my age. A projector, however, has to be fed and Father allowed me to join a library operated by Wallace Heaton in London’s Bond Street. He then, without complaint, began to pay for my habit, which quickly grew. The number of silent films available from Pathé at that time was huge. The catalogue was a treasure trove. I would comb through it for hours before deciding what to rent. Then would come the thrill of waiting. In those days Boston had a direct rail link with London. I would cycle to the station to await the arrival of those brown fibre boxes in which the films were dispatched, often disappointed when they failed to arrive. I could have the films for one day only, after which there was an extra charge.
Films were very important in those pre-television days. At the start of term, boys who lived in large cities would relate the entire plots of films they had seen during their holidays. The more extreme would even act them out, mostly in the dormitory before we all fell asleep or Matron called for “no further talking.” One boy, I recall, had somehow been admitted to an H, for Horror, certificate picture, which was very rare indeed. He had to act out the really horrible bits many times for our “delectation and delight,” a phrase I’d learned at Butlin’s Skegness Holiday Camp. I think the picture was The Bat, maybe not, but I know it had Bela Lugosi in it. I rarely had to tell the plots of the films I had seen in Boston because they had been doing the rounds for months and were considered old hat by my more sophisticated friends.
The early interest I had from home movies with the Pathé Ace was fanned at Nevill Holt because the headmaster loved films himself and the school had a 16 mm Ampro sound projector, quite rare in those days, and a source of great interest to me. Films were shown on Sunday evenings during the winter terms, and this was when my interest was really kindled. The boys would sit on the polished wood floor of the Elizabethan ballroom that had a screen raised at one end and the projector stood at the other, operated by the headmaster. The loudspeaker and projector were permanent fixtures, the speaker high up in the ceiling, and the projector locked up in its case between the piano and the lectern. We also had church services in the ballroom, with the headmaster, officiating. Because the war was already underway, supplies for the Ampro were a matter of great concern to the boys, since the projection and the wonderfully worded “Exciter” lamps, essential to the sound, were prone to failure right in the middle of a movie. Spare lamps were at a premium, and we prayed they would last through the film. Later, when American soldiers and airmen were stationed nearby, the problem eased; it seemed their friendly PXs were well stocked with Ampro spares.
Excitement about the Sunday film would grow from mid-week when a small notice would go up announcing the title. It might have read:
Ask a Policeman
Will Hay, Moore Marriott,
Graham Moffatt. 8 reels.
It was that last bit of information that really got to me. I knew that a seven-reel film might not be too good, certainly not very long, whereas a ten-reeler would be the bee’s knees. The headmaster always included a short, introducing me toThe Secrets of Nature and the voice of E.V. H. Emmett as well as to the black and white Mickey Mouse and Popeye cartoons. How we boys laughed. Just like Sullivan’s Travels.
It was the high point of our week, and the headmaster, well aware of this, used it as the ultimate punishment. Far more hurtful than any beating was that awful moment when he told you that you would retire to bed without supper instead of seeing the film. The dormitories were ranged around the Elizabethan ballroom, so the punished boy would lay in bed, in broad daylight, miserable, listening to a soundtrack, trying to imagine the pictures that accompanied it.I only suffered this once and made certain after that to follow the rules, so itmay be that my passion for cinema taught me to be careful. Too careful, I sometimes think.
The films—mostly British—that we saw had been carefully vetted by the headmaster. He subscribed, I later realised, to the GeBescope library from which I also obtained films some years later. In fact the arrival of their annual catalogue was a real high spot. I never became a projectionist at Nevill Holt. Mr. Phillips, our headmaster, was far too possessive to allow that, but he did let me help rewind the big 1,600-foot reels that held forty minutes of each film. In many ways I owe a great debt of gratitude to him, for my first job at Ealing Studios many years later consisted of just that. Many of us in the cutting rooms began as rewind boys.
In the winter terms I longed for the Sunday film show. The weekly evenings seemed so long. After evening prep we were allowed two hours reading or playing table games before bedtime. Often, a few boys were invited to read in the Great Hall. This was a time I really enjoyed. The Hall had a magic atmosphere, exuding the ancient traditions that surrounded it. The lofty oak beams could reach the sky, or so it seemed. I often wondered how they changed the burned out lamps. Trapdoors in the roof was the answer. All around the panelled walls was a collection of spears, swords, muskets, shields, fox masks, and immense tapestries. In the centre of the long back wall was inlaid a great fireplace, on which huge logs lay smouldering for days. The chimney above it was so wide that two boys could climb it simultaneously. The wood smoke smell was unforgettable. It clung to the room even in midsummer. The jewel in the Hall’s crown was the grand piano, maybe a Steinway, it was long and thin like the hands of a pianist. When my music teacher, Mr. Lindner played Chopin and Bach on it I was transported. Lying on my back, my imagination would soar beyond the roof and up into the stars. The Hall, the music, and the wood smoke were a potent mixture. When the music stopped, only vague shadows could be seen in the oak beams, and the creaking of hungry beetles.
Although parents were able to visit the school and take their boys out for lunch on a Sunday, that was a rare event for me. Petrol rationing had prevented that. One, however, had little time for parents in schooldays. In fact, a visit was sometimes simply resented, particularly if it involved missing a film.
My parents always encouraged me to bring a friend home, which was too embarrassing. On the few occasions I did this, I had reason to regret it. My mother was sure to say something that my “friend” would then spread around the school. Apart from writing the obligatory letter home every week, which was scrutinised by the teacher and heavily censored, I rarely thought of home. Others blubbered in their beds. Some had good reason for they had lost their fathers on active service. One boy in my dorm, named Barwell, lost his father early in the Battle of Britain and mourned him dreadfully. I think we understood and perhaps didn’t tease him too badly.
We were, indeed, still at war and none of us could forget it. Perhaps because we were growing up we became more aware of events surrounding us. Dunkirk was now far behind, the Japanese were sinking most of the Royal Navy, and I had heard about the collapse of Italy during the summer holidays when we waited for a train at a country station. War news rarely reached us at Nevill Holt where no newspapers circulated and no radios were heard. The Blitz had not ended yet, and we knew our air-raid drill by heart.
Nobody seriously worried that Nevill Holt school might be bombed, but there was a large steel mill at Corby across the valley, which was regularly visited by bombers, and on these occasions we were forced to take shelter. Late one night, when I was asleep, we were awakened by rough hands, whisked into dressing gowns and slippers, and marshalled rapidly into the shelters in the garden. These had