“…my uncle Laurie found that there was a small unit of four people making documentary and training films in the nether regions of Waterloo Station, well beneath the notice of a trade union. My father set up his Blickensderfer (the oldest typewriter in the world) on our dining-room table and dashed off a letter...
Read more »
Although the film isn’t mentioned in David’s two memoirs, The Long Night Haul (19 minutes) is an ambitious and complex film celebrating the foundation of the British Road Service’s general haulage truck service. Sometimes perhaps David shot a film which was without any notable anecdotes and thus passes without notice in his canon of...
Read more »
This a short, nine minute film to commemorate the construction of the Travolator between the Bank and Waterloo stations in London to supplement the long walk required of City commuters and nicknamed The Drain. The otherwise exemplary box of DVDs, The British Transport Film Collection does not identify any credits. For the only time...
Read more »
“Edgar promised Ritchie, who was getting restless, a break to direct and so I took over The England of Elizabeth with John Taylor again. It is nice to have one’s name on the same picture as Vaughan Williams although on the only occasion when I should have met the great man I was sent...
Read more »
“Happily I was now able in small measure to repay some of my debt to Jimmy Ritchie. The next film for me after THE ENGLAND OF ELIZABETH was his first picture as a director, and it turned out to be a very charming one. It was about a railway orphanage in Derby run by...
Read more »
Snowdrift at Bleak Gill, 1955, directed by Kenneth Fairburn, edited by John Legard and photographed by Bob Paynter. David Watkin was an unacknowledged assistant on this film. The film is 10minutes, largely devoted to the single task of freeing a goods engine and carriages from snowdrifts using a mechanised snow plough and gangs of...
Read more »
Blue Pullman, 1960 was directed and written by Jimmie Ritchie and photographed by David Watkin and Jack West. It was edited by Hugh Raggett with music by Clifton Parker. The film was shot in colour and lasts almost 23 minutes, exploring the intensive testing of the new 90mph diesel-electric Midland Pullman, and its maiden...
Read more »
Stills supplied by Barry Coward at Beulah
Read more »
British Transport Films was an organisation set up in 1949 to make documentary films on the general subject of British transport. Its work included internal training films, travelogues (extolling the virtues of places that could be visited via the British transport system – mostly by rail), and “industrial films” (as they were called) promoting...
Read more »
The career of David Watkin revealed through photographic glimpses… British Transport Films Alan working at 25 Saville Row, 1955 Alan and Tom in the Post Office Yard, Waterloo, 1956 BTF crew: Baxter, Richie and Williams England’s North Country BTF crew: Robertson and Richie
Read more »
Born into an illustrious railway family, David Watkin began work with the Southern Region Film Unit of British Railways in the late 1940′s. In 1950 he became a messenger boy and assistant cameraman at British Transport Films. Barry Coward writes: One day in 1981 I received a phone call from a David Watkin asking...
Read more »