Harry Birrell – Films of Love and War

This programme was shown on BBC 4 on 25 March 2020. It is wonderfully entertaining, indeed engrossing. Harry was given a cine camera on his 10th birthday in 1928 and used it to record his life and times for the next 60-plus years.

Of interest to all Cameronians (and historians) is that in 1939, at the outbreak of war, he joined the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) and was sent for initial training to their depot in Hamilton. He joined the regiment because it had been his father’s regiment. His father WH Birrell was serving as a second lieutenant in the 11th Battalion when he died of wounds near Salonika in what was then Macedonia. This was in 1918, just before the Armistice.

The Regimental History, Volume II, tells of the history of this battalion which went first to France and then to Macedonia where they were part of a Franco-British-Serbian force which was trying to deny the Bulgarians use of this major Mediterranean port. There were many casualties, not least because of malaria.

Harry was not to see service with the regiment. After commissioning he was sent to India where he joined the 7th Gurkhas. (Readers may be aware that this was the regiment which, after the war, formed a close alliance with the 1st Battalion the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)). As Harry was a qualified surveyor he was sent to carry out important surveying and map-making work behind enemy lines in Burma. Much of the film is of his time with the Gurkhas and in India and Burma.

This film has been produced by Harry’s granddaughter, Carina Birrell, and she plays an important part in introducing both the film and Harry’s diaries, all of which had lain undisturbed in boxes and trunks at the family home near Paisley. It is a joy as well as being an important archive.

Comments: 0