An armistice reflection 2018

This blog has lost its way so I though I would change it's template to be entitled Mairi's Blog to give me more scope to cover different things. This year has flown by and I just have not go off the starting blocks. Even my documentary making on private John Smith got delayed in the final weeks of its editing process, because I got bad concussion for 3 weeks after banging my head on a heavy car door! But I decided to carry on with completing the documentary and not worry that I missed the deadline of Armistice 2018 to screen it. So without more fuss I list below my maternal grandfather's story about Private John Smith and his time in WW1 Passchendaele battle.

This picture was taken a month before he was called up under the Derby scheme of enlistment in mid 1917 in June. He left his daughter barely a month old and his wife Tabitha, to go to the Black Watch training centre, where his special skill of speaking German was sought after in the later part of the war. Within 3 weeks he found himself close to the Messine Ridge in Ypres and soon enough he was plunged into the worst battle of the war - Passchendaele. This battle became famous because it's casualties amounted to 500,000 from a new weapon, Mustard Gas, which combined with the unfortunate conditions in the trenches of dangerous water filled, flows of mud the men toppled into the ground creating horrific mass graves. The use of Mustard gas was to become it's first and last achievement in that when the top brass realised that it was causing multiple deaths in a grossly inhumane and 'inefficient' way, its was banned soon after as a weapon of war.

John's war was not to last long because although he got to the end of Passchandaele he received Mustard Gas poisoning which meant he had lung erosion that was to trouble him for the rest of his life. When Passchendaele ended on the 10th November 2017 John was making his way to the field hospital in Ypres, where it was decided he must return home to become one of thousands of men who could not return to the battlefield. In the UK he woke up in hospital a month later hearing carol singers at Christmas time. Awaking from unconsciousness, he thought he had died and gone to heaven, when hearing the notes of the music that had brought him round.

It would take a while before he would realise that he was at Craiglockhart hospital a special place for soldiers with the newly coined term 'shell shock' though John was also dealing with the effects of Mustard gas. There the hospital had a regime to give soldiers rehabilitation therapy by doing tasks and jobs which might distract them from the thoughts of the battle scenes they had witnessed. The hospital was the place where the poet's Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were available to other soldiers to help show them see the benefits of poetry as a means of dealing with shell shock. John was to take up poetry himself while also participating in the occupational therapy of needlework a job that was familiar to him because he was a professional tailor before the war. In the picture above his is on the right front seated but the Black Watch badge he made is being held by another wounded soldier. 

John did not return to the action of the war , but he was to write poetry, which was published in local newspapers in Fife, Scotland, under the pen name SARTOR, which means tailor in Latin. Below is one of his poems called Storm and War which was published in 1953 after his time in World War Two serving again in the Black Watch. 

Storm and War

Storm

All day, all night, along the storm-swept shore,

The gale, blind giant astride the waves, drives hard,

They madly gallop and crash with thundering roar,

To spumy fragments rent -such is their reward-

Tis nature's law alone that they hold in regard.

White birds on tense wings above the chaos ride,

Flying, unresting as the wild gale raves.

Seeing destruction scattered far and wide,

When seaweed and silken tresses the storm laves:

Unwitting they scar, glide,wheel, o'er unsought graves.

War

All day, all night, along earth's war swept coasts,

War, grim tyrant, astride the nations, drives them hard,

And they assenting, crash midst thundering hosts,

To gory fragments rent - such is their reward -

Lured on by wealth and power, vain, illusive ghosts.

White love on strong wings above war's chaos glides,

Yearns, unresting, questing for the peace of home,

Longs to stop destruction ranging far and wide

O'er all earth's coasts and oceans embattled foam:

Waiting, oh Man, to make they errant heart her home.

'Leven Mail' (East Fife Mail) 25^th Feb 1953 SAR TOR

Finally I hope to complete the documentary for a Christmas screening which seems appropriate because he woke up at Christmas time after being unconscious on his travel back home. It is not too late to contribute to the Go Fund Me, which has no deadlines in its scheme. The money raised so far will go on a student editor for one week. As a contributor you will get a Producer credit, a copy of the film on DVD and small booklet of John's story containing some of his poems. You can donate by going to the link on the word here

Hello Big Summer Heatwave. Just back from a journey of attending a few Kiefer Sutherland band concerts from his #RecklessTour2018 and I will, of course, be sorting out the photos I took over the next few weeks. Certainly, in the UK it was a victory for him with full houses and good responses to his new album called This is How it is Done. In the meantime here is a photo, I took, from last year's Glasgow concert. Bear with me while I grapple with the inevitable geg sizes of some of the photos. (Storage space!!!)

Kiefer Sutherland Not Enough Whisky Tour 2017 Glasgow

Now onto the Next Thing

Cycle Feature Drama

On to the film news and the films from Palm Tree Universal's stable on Amazon, I thought I would take a look at the less known thriller Cycle, which is a shameless 'slasher' style movie. It turned out much more violent than I expected from reading the script in pre-production, but I did think the writer Robbie Moffat had nailed the scary things that could be lurking in the hills of Scotland particularly places like the famed Glencoe valley and Mountain where it was shot a few years ago.

The story revolves around 3 students who take a hiking and camping holiday during their term break.  They attract the attention of a loner on a bike thus the name Cycle. He turns out to be more than a 'Peeping Tom' or Stalker. He is altogether something more sinister but because of the dysfunctional nature of the 3 girls friendships, they do not notice when one of them goes missing. By then it is too late for them to see they are in the clutches of a serial killer. 

It sounds like a cliche but the way the lead actor Andreas Beltzer portrays this deranged character is very chilling and forces one to look away at times. So this will not be everyone's cup of tea. However, the bright spark of the production was the actress Vivien Taylor who has the capacity to add an extra nuance to a line. She reminded me of the film when I shared accommodation with her at the Cannes Film Festival and so I decided to feature it here this month. The sharp heat here also reminded me of the summer it was shot in, at the time. The cinematography of the Highlands of Scotland is stunning and it is a must for people who know these hills. You can see it on Amazon when you hit the link of the word link on the word Cycle

Vivien is pictured with me below at the Cannes Film Festival 2018

Vivien has gone on to receive awards for the film Train Set 

I hope you have time to watch Cycle.

Photoshoot Movie directed by Mairi Sutherland #MeToo Theme

The film Photoshoot was written and directed by my good self in 2009 but it took a few years for it to be readily available on Amazon Prime. An Independent British film I wrote it as a satirical comment on the attitude of the film industry to women and in that sense it was certainly before its time. Since then the MeToo Movement has created a tidal wave against Hollywood male attitudes and so this film with its story of a women who loses her career because she was sexually assaulted by a well known photographer, is now a film that has an up to date theme. The film delves into the psychological effects of sexual assault and the resulting fall out with the male film making hierarchy. For this portrayal of a women on the edge the lead actress Debbie Arnold received a Best Actress Award from the British Worthing Film Festival in 2010.

In writing it I was drawing from my own experience of being sexually assaulted by a BBC freelance reporter in 1991. Now over 25 years later we know from the Saville and others, that this was common place in the BBC with a culture that saw it as acceptable and part of the male celebrity belief that they were entitled to demand sexual favours from women, without consent as part of their job.

Now with the plethora of court cases, it is no long considered fashionable, or savvy in any way to have been part of that culture or to be seen as maintaining it in the BBC or Hollywood for that matter. Through out my 15 years as one of the most employed female film producers in Britain (according to blogger Stephen Fellows who compiles such film statistics) I have to say that I have had my fair share of humiliations from the male film community including being lined up with 9 other women, in a corporate setting to become a possible date for a famous film producer. In that respect I'm glad I was not chosen for the night out as more likely I would have defended myself in the manner of the character in Photo-shoot May Hudson.

I enjoyed making the movie and once the assault scene was filmed and accomplished with dignity by the actress Lara Clear I felt I could move on from the part of my life that had haunted me. If you want to support independent female voices in the film industry like myself please watch my film on Amazon Prime by hitting the link on here