Amomentous day that of March 1933—my seventeenth birthday— for I was to have an interview with the great John Grierson, the founder of the British documentary film. He had won his spurs with his film Drifters, an account of the workings of the North Sea herring fleet. Its success enabled him to form the G.P.O. Film Unit. Many a famous director and cameraman were to make their first mistakes in that unit.

Happily, as I set out for my interview, I was unaware that every graduate from Oxbridge was queuing up to join the great man's unit. Ignorance was bliss for I had not even passed Common Entrance, let alone School Cert or London Matric. In academic terms I had nothing to offer. I could read and write and speak the King's English—hardly an advantage today—and that was about the extent of my marketable assets.

My only experience of the film industry had been a two-week stint as a loading boy for a Bell and Howell camera. A quota quickie was being made at Welwyn, starring Wally and Barry Lupino, and I owed this peep into film making to a dear friend, Henry Blyth. He had got his job by writing an angry letter to the Wolfe brothers, telling them how short-sighted they were not to answer letters from people with ideas and enthusiasm, anxious to join the industry. They were so impressed by his letter and by him, when they deigned to give him an interview, that they gave him a job there and then. They got a bargain for Henry was a brilliant man and a graduate of Wadham. He was good enough to recommend me when an assistant cameraman was suddenly needed. The Wolfe brothers may have thought that a similar bargain was on the way. They didn't have time to find out as the job only lasted two weeks. The series came to an abrupt end.

Nevertheless, I managed to expose the first 1000-foot roll that I was to load for Jack Parker, the lighting cameraman (I had forgotten to remove the key of the magazine which kept open the light-proof slits which allowed the film to pass into the camera and back into the take-up half of the magazine).