Finding a long lost relative.
Categories: and-another-thing
Tags: Navy
Date: 29 September 2009 07:10:36
Meet my great uncle Garth.
A fair number of years ago, as my dad and I chatted about the past, he mentioned that his mum's brother had been in a war poster and that he would dearly love to have a copy. I searched and searched: books on the designs of posters of the era, visits and calls and emails to the Imperial War Museum, Naval history centres etc but nothing seemed to come up with anything other than abject scepticism. 'Are you sure he's correct?' I think they had an incorrect image in mind when I asked if they could help. My dad was not falling into a daydream then or now, he knows this poster well. It existed.
A couple of weeks ago his neighbour gave him a video of Hounslow during the war. A silent translation of a 16 mm film in a cheap plastic box. He almost threw it out but decided to give it a quick watch through to see if there was anything interesting on show.
And there it was. The poster. It's not a great copy, the conversion of old 16 mm film to video and then to my camera... It'll take work to get onto a large piece of canvas... But I will because seeing my dad's face looking at Garth's was a picture all of its own. Sadly Garth died on the HMS Hood (I think, there was a lot of info chatted about but I'm fairly sure that was the name) so I never got to meet him, but my dad thought the world of him and to see the poster found was a very lovely thing.