A man who was watching newly released historic footage of the Dunkirk evacuation was shocked to spot his father in the films, cartwheeling on the deck of a boat and sticking his finger up at the cameraman.
Peter Brown, 68, was amazed to see his father, Dr James Gorrie Brown, feature so prominently in the 75-year-old films, which capture key moments of the evacuation of the Allied forces from Dunkirk in 1940.
The footage, documenting the rescue of over 300,000 troops trapped by advancing German forces, generated substantial interest because it provided such a rare and unique insight into the event.
Peter, who lives and works in the Lake District as a pianist, came across the digitised versions of the reels of black and white footage while researching pictures of the first destroyer on which his father served during World War II.
He said: “Imagine my astonishment when noticing in reel one my own father, coming into shot from the left and knocking over the officer who was sitting on the lilo.
“A few seconds later, he’s the guy on the left of the trio, sticking a finger up at the cameraman.
“He goes on to cartwheel down the deck, taking a golf stroke, sunbathe on a lilo and walk the tightrope.
“Subsequent to these antics, he appears prominently in the swimming pool scenes in reels one and two, helping the dog onto a lilo and diving and jumping into the pool in various ways with the lilo.”
As a child at boarding school in Worcestershire, Peter discovered that one of his teachers was attended to by his father, after the HMS Whitehall rescued him from Dunkirk.
After the war, Dr Brown was a much loved GP for 40 years in Middlewich, Cheshire, and died in the 80s at the age of 73.
The films were shot by Lieutenant Philip Roderick Hall who was serving aboard the destroyer HMS Whitehall, one of hundreds of naval vessels, merchant ships and small boats that took part in the rescue.
The reels were found in Manchester University’s John Rylands Library by a member of the Heald-Hall family.
The family’s remarkable archive of correspondence, letter-books and diaries, spanning from 1866 to 1987, is one of hundreds of outstanding collections of rare books and manuscripts housed in the library.
Last year, the films, which had previously only been seen by a handful of people, were digitised by the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The films can now be viewed by the public on YouTube and the original reels have been donated to the Imperial War Museum in London for specialist preservation.
John Hodgson, manuscripts and archives manager at the John Rylands Library said being able to reunite Peter with previous memories of his father was “astounding”.
He said: “We took the decision to release the footage to the media because we felt they were an important record of such an historic moment when our servicemen and civilians risked their lives to rescue the stricken army.
“But we never imagined we’d end up giving a family a window into the life of one of their relatives.”
By Imogen Robinson
