I was face-to-face with Harry Watt, later to make his name with Target for Tonight and Overlanders.

‘Hullo Jackson, I'm Harry.’

‘How do you do, Sir.’

‘We drop all that, here. Just call me Harry. What's yours?’

‘Pat, Sir—I mean, Harry.’

‘Very democratic, the film bizz, very informal, though we do refer to Mr Grierson as the Chief. Tomorrow, get out of your suit, because you'll be expected to do all sorts of odd jobs apart from running messages: flannel bags and an old hacking jacket's the ticket.’

Then, out of the centre door on the right, appeared a composed looking youth, about my age. He was blinking. ‘Chick, this is Pat, our new messenger boy.’

‘Hullo Pat, I'll see you properly in a tick; when you've been in the dark room … it takes a second or two to focus, properly.’ Chick Fowle was to become a great cameraman, who was to shoot many of Humphrey Jennings's films: Spare Time, Listen to Britain, and many others. He showed me the enlargements he had been doing. Beautiful prints of Ceylon, as it was in those days. Wonderful studies of Buddhist temples and close-ups of Sinhalese dancers in their fantastic head-dress and ceremonial garb. Basil Wright, he told me, had just returned with thousands of feet of film which was to become the famous Song of Ceylon.

Chick kindly asked me to join him for lunch. It cost us sixpence, a ham roll and cup of tea in a small cafe in Rathbone Street which was almost directly opposite 39 Oxford Street—most convenient. Chick had been with the unit about six months and was a true Londoner. He too had started as ‘the messenger boy’ and was thoughtful enough to be encouraging about that lowly station. ‘You'll soon be doing a bit of everything, apart from running messages’, he said.