Nanna Liz's precious
photos
"Gather round, and
I'll tell
you a true story about those two photos sitting there on
the cabinet," Liz
Coulthard told her grandchildren in Christie Downs,
South Australia, as she
settled back into her comfortable armchair. This is her
story.
It all began a long, long time ago, during the second
World War, when I was a
little three-year-old girl living in a place called
Bootle, near Liverpool, in
the northwest of England, (no, love, it had nothing to
do with the Beatles. They
came later, but they too lived in
Liverpool
).
My dad - your great-grandad - was away fighting with the
British forces in
Italy
. I missed him so much that I kept his picture under my
pillow until he finally
came home, then I let my Mum put it on the mantlepiece
for everyone to see.
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(Nanna
Liz showed them this photo)
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It was only by a great stroke of luck that we ever
got hold of that photo in
the first place.
In January 1944 my Mum went to the pictures. That's what
we called the local
picture-palace or cinema. There was no TV in those days.
They screened a
newsreel called "Snow in
Italy
", that showed Tommies (that was what British
soldiers were called) helping
to clear snowdrifts around the country - and in one
scene there was a clear shot
of my Dad!
What happened next is told in this old clipping from
one of the local
newspapers. I'm not sure which newspaper it came from,
but it would have been
the Bootle Times, the Bootle Herald or the
Liverpool Echo.
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(Nanna Liz showed them
this clipping)
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Sees husband on
News Film
Mrs.
McLeod, of
Hood Street
, Bootle, was in the audience at the
Gainsborough Cinema
recently, to see "Five Graves to
Cairo
". She arrived just in time to see
the news-reel, and
watched the show showing our soldiers in
Italy
with particular interest, for somewhere
out there Signalman
Joseph McLeod, her 30-years-old husband,
was fighting. On to the
screen flashed a picture of soldiers
drinking cocoa and others
digging in the snow. Mrs. McLeod looked
at it for a few seconds
and then thrilled with excitement, for
she recognised her
husband as one of the men. Mrs. McLeod
knew many other women who
had thought erroneously that they
recognised husbands, brothers
or fiancés in news-reels, but her belief
was confirmed when she
saw her mother-in-law, who had seen the
shots at the Princess
Cinema, and was convinced that she had
seen her son.
A letter
which removed any doubt
arrived the following morning from
Signalman McLeod. He told his
wife and mother to "look out for
him on the pictures,"
and described the scene in which he
appeared.
Mrs.
McLeod, Jr., went to the
Princess Cinema, Kirkdale, so that she
could see the scene
again. After the show was over she
explained to the manager her
interest in the film, and he gave her a
cutting of the strip.
Unfortunately, this could not be
reproduced.
Signalman
McLeod has been in the
Army for three years, and was posted
overseas twelve months ago.
He has one child, a girl aged three.
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That little girl was me! What really happened was the
cinema manager kindly
agreed to re-run the film for a private viewing, and
gave my Mum a single frame
from it, and she later persuaded someone to turn it into
a print. And that's the
photo I've just shown you - still one of my proudest
possessions.
But that's not the end of the story. After leaving
Commercial
College
in
Liverpool
I became a shorthand typist for two years - just
waiting until I was old enough
to join the Bootle Police Force, where I was employed as
a policewoman for four
years.
Then I married your Pops, and retired from the police
when I was expecting
our first baby. Next, we migrated to
Australia
, where I've worked as a sewing machinist, presser,
store detective, and a
pattern maker for a wetsuit manufacturer.
About 18 months ago I had tried and tried to find out
where I could get a
copy of that wartime film, or at least SEE IT. I knew
the name of the clip, and
one evening at home, whilst using the internet, I
decided to look at ITN's
Archive site, for clips of the old serials like
Coronation Street
, that I'd watched in
England
.
I noticed that ITN also had some old wartime
newsreels, including wartime
clips from Pathe News. I forgot about
Coronation Street
, and after typing in ww2Snow in
Italy
it came up with several possibilities, and I
finally found it! I was so
delighted I burst into tears. I had been trying to find
it for more than 60
years!
We first read a shorter version of this delightful
story in a newsletter
published by LOST COUSINS, one of
Britain
's best genealogical websites, which helps thousands of
virtual visitors locate
their cousins and other relatives. Its founder, Peter
Calver, kindly asked Liz
Coulthard to contact us, and she was happy to recount
the details.
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