This film I remember was shown in the local village hall where I live sometime in the mid fifties. We had at that time a full film programme every Tuesday evening and we loved it – and the films we saw there as youngsters were memorable to say the least. This was one of those – a film about the Battle of Britain with terrific sequences filmed at Kenley Airfield in Kent – over which the famous battle was fought. One scene from the film – which was on BBC TV in England today Saturday 7 th. January 2017 – showed the RAF fighters scrambled and then we saw maybe seven Spitfires / Hurricanes taxiing out to the runway – a scene that could not be done today – and then even better, as Dulcie Gray  walked beside the airfield the fighters took off two at a time in a spectacular sequence that would be more impressive today than when the film was released I reckon because people would still remember it well from only 7 or 8 years earlier and also they would not be looking at it with the same nostalgic eyes that we would today.

Above: Spitfires and Hurricanes  over Kent.

There was a cast of stalwart British Actors taking part – many of them would have served in the forces only a few years earlier so knew exactly what it was all about.

Filmed mainly at RAF Kenley and at the real operations block at RAF Uxbridge.

Above: A German Fighter is shot down over Kent.

Based around events at a RAF fighter station in the summer of 1940,  T.B. ‘Septic’ Baird (John Gregson) arrives in a heap by landing his Hurricane on its nose in a garden at the end on the runway.  Captain ‘Tiger’ Small is played by  Jack Hawkins.

This picture was in a Film Book of  1957

Jack Hawkins with his wife and son Nicholas. They have another son Andrew and a daughter.

They live close to the Thames so maybe this is where they are in this shot. Lovely picture though.

She will be remembered for the film Mandy from 1952 in which she starred as the deaf girl – her parents being played by Jack Hawkins and Phyllis Calvert.  I remember in the early days of Television this film was reviewed and discussed a lot on its release – and the focus was on the acting on the very young Mandy Miller.

and a few years later she is famous for  her song Nellie The Elephant.

And below in The Snorkel – a film I have just purchased – is Mandy in a grown up role in this Hammer Film

Paul Decker murders his wife in her Italian villa by drugging her milk and asphyxiating her by gas. He cleverly locks the bedroom from the inside and hides inside a trapdoor in the floor until after the body is discovered by servants. He uses a scuba snorkel connected to tubes on the outside to breathe during the ordeal. Decker’s stepdaughter Candy suspects him immediately, especially since no suicide note was found. She also is convinced that he murdered her father years before, but her accusations fall on deaf ears. The ruthless Decker even poisons the family spaniel when the pet takes too great an interest in the mask and realises he will ultimately have to get rid of Candy too.