Early January 1942. I had spent two dreary days on a building site near Bedford. An ordnance factory was being built and a film had to be made about it. A less cinematic subject would be hard to find. I had been asked to make it, and was about to report to Dal on my findings. I entered his office wondering how I could get out of this most unrewarding subject.

‘How did you get on?’

‘There's nothing to film, Dal. I'm sorry but what could be less cinematic than drain pipes, muddy puddles and bulldozers buzzing about? A building site is a building site. Dead as mutton.’

‘Maybe … But it's got to be done so you'd better go away and think how. It's no good thinking it's impossible; that won't get you anywhere. Find a way of making that building site interesting. O.K.?’

‘O.K. Dal.’ I went down to Jo's cafe, almost below 21 Soho Square, often frequented by Joe Loss and his band. What Ian Dalrymple had asked me to do was think of a way of making a fiveminute film on the building of an ordnance factory. The request had come from the Minister of Works. He was worried that the morale of the building workforce was non-existent. On certain sites, almost every day, an excuse was found to strike. He felt that a film showing how important their work was might help to encourage a more willing contribution to the war effort. That was the brief and there was no escape from it. Harry had had his Savings Bank and now I had my building site. Find the shape.

How to get the message across in five minutes? Visually, there was to be no help from the subject matter. I had spent a miserably depressing couple of days on the site in question, my future location. It was just outside Bedford and the only interesting visual was the forest of chimney stacks of the London Brick Company standing stark and gaunt on the horizon. They weren't going to be of much help. However, I had found a wonderful cockney character, a ‘brickie’ all his life, Charlie Fielding, a master of his craft.