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Photographs by Anne James, taken during the filming of The Survivor
In 2000 Patrick Garland, who lived nearby, gave me (Anne Williamson) a selection of the photographs taken during the filming, with permission to use them. His note enclosing them stated: 'Good memories come flooding back.' One set of the photographs has ‘Anne James’ on the reverse and it was presumed that she was the photographer. Ms James confirmed that this was so when she was contacted, and that she held the copyright (‘The BBC never paid me for them, so the copyright remains with me.’). The HWS gratefully acknowledges her permission to reproduce the photographs below.
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| HW taking charge! |
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| Patrick Garland and HW discuss filming |
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| Further discussion |
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| HW deep in thought |
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| Trees at the Field |
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| The Studio in the Field (this was built in 1952) |
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| Wood neatly piled under the extended eave specified by HW for rain protection |
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| Waiting to film |
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| Checking a point |
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| The path down to the Writing Hut |
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| The salmon wind-vane on the Writing Hut chimney |
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| HW in the Writing Hut (note the photo of three of his children behind him) |
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| Making a point |
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| (This and the next two photographs) HW reading a letter from T. E. Lawrence |
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| Walking on Baggy Point |
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| Musing on Baggy Point |
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| Waiting to film |
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| HW and Patrick Garland in discussion |
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| The discussion continues |
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| Something amuses HW |
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| Waiting to go |
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| On the tip of Baggy Point |
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| The fearsome 300-ft drop from Baggy's cliffs |
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| Patrick andf HW climb up from the cliff path |
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| HW receives more direction |
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| The bridge over the River Caen, on way to Braunton Marsh |
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| A wreck at Crow Point |
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| Walking at Crow Point |
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Walking along the desolate shore beside Braunton Burrows. On the opposite shore is the old power station, a blight on the landscape that was built in the early 1950s and closed down in 1985. It was demolished in the late 1980s. |
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Anne James had an interesting and varied career within the BBC. Born in 1928, she left school at sixteen and immediately took a secretarial course, joining the BBC as a shorthand typist in the latter part of the Second World War on £3 10s a week. She feels herself to have been ‘very, very lucky’ to have worked with such people as Sir Huw Wheldon, whom she remembers as setting ‘very high standards’, Humphrey Burton, Melvyn Bragg, and Ken Russell, as well as Patrick Garland. Regarding herself as born and bred in the BBC, and particularly the arts in television, Ms James was always interested in photography, and found that she had an aptitude for taking still photographs and ‘getting the right moment’. Indeed, the Royal Academy of Arts holds a small portfolio of her portraits of Sir Hugh Casson.
It was Humphrey Burton who was responsible for recruiting Patrick Garland, who worked as a freelance, as an occasional BBC director. Ms James recalls Patrick entering a room on one occasion looking somewhat downcast; when asked what the matter was, he replied dolefully, ‘It’s my birthday – I’m twenty-five.’ (It is worth remembering that Garland was only thirty when he produced and directed The Survivor.)
Ms James ended her career with the BBC in 1983 as a respected director, making a series of films in the series ‘Personal Pleasures’ with Sir Hugh Casson, then President of the Royal Academy of Arts, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
During the shooting of The Survivor she was acting as PA to Patrick Garland. Unfortunately she did not keep any written notes, as she would do on future filming projects, and her recollections of the occasion are understandably few: HW gave her a lift back from filming on one location, and she remembers him as having a habit of repeating himself. Her one clear memory is of the journey home in Patrick Garland’s car after filming was complete: they were involved in an accident and the car turned over. Knocked unconscious, she woke up with her head on the sound recordist’s shoulder (Bob Roberts), but fortunately nobody was seriously hurt.
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