John HALAS and Joy BATCHELOR

British cinema has had more than its fair share of directorial duos, but this is probably the only one where the partners were married to each other. British cinema has also secured an international reputation for animation; the foundations of that tradition lie in the work of this husband and wife team. John Halas, birth name János Hálász, was born in Budapest, Hungary on 16 April 1912. He began his career there working with the future Hollywood special effects wizard George Pal. When he came to Britain in 1936, Joy Batchelor (born in Watford on 22 May 1914) answered his advertisement for an assistant. They initially worked together in graphic design, but soon began making animated shorts together and in 1940 founded their own animation company, Halas-Batchelor Cartoon Films. They were married the same year.

The company began by making commercials for clients like Kelloggs but was quickly recruited by the Ministry of Information to make propaganda shorts for the war effort. They produced over seventy of these engaging films, including Filling the Gap (1941) which encouraged the public to make better use of their gardens by growing vegetables.

After the war they continued to take commissions from government departments for public education films. Among these were the series featuring ‘Charley’, a curmudgeon who needs to have the advantages of the welfare state explained to him.