I was up and out reasonably early today for a swim. After reading part of the Helion book on Sir William Brereton’s Cheshire army, then a snooze and light lunch I settled down with the telly (curtains drawn and windows closed all day to keep the heat down with temperature outside above 30 again).
This caught my eye on Freeview Channel 8 (London Live in this region):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_from_Life
The IMDB page has it down as ‘Lost Daughter’ (presumably the name used for its US release)
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0040703/
The story concerns the attempt by a British officer in post-War to track down a girl (played by Mai Zetterling*) from a concentration camp. * obviously that’s a spoiler alert that he does find her. The search, whilst accounting for a significant part of the film, is only half of the story. The other half being uncovering the truth of the girl’s life. Portrait from Life (released in 1949) is not a perfect film by any means, and in parts it’s acted in a rather stilted manner for modern tastes. It does however touch on many themes, historical and psychological, connected with the plight of millions of Europeans caught up in one of the biggest migrations in modern history. Herbert Lom’s performance (an exception to the comment about acting style) pays watching too.
Following that was a short ‘community’ programme about districts of London. This one focusing on Woolwich (which somehow managed to say that Arsenal FC started as Woolwich Arsenal without explaining why ‘Arsenal’), Deptford and Lewisham. It had some interesting historical snippets.
Then followed Walks Around Britain, which concentrated on short walks of 2-8 miles. Most of the episodes I’ve seen have been fairly gentle. If you’ve not seen it, it has a rather gentle, old school feel (in my case this means echoes of school days in the 1970s). More places for me to take my wife, herself a keen outdoor person, in the UK. She enjoys the varied scenery, flora and fauna (especially the flora) not being from these parts. The producers of Walks Around Britain have a website which I haven’t explored yet. Maybe there are some walks near you.
https://www.walksaroundbritain.co.uk/
An afternoon well spent.
Oh I almost forgot. Following the usual Wiki route I ended up here (I had no idea Zetterling was also a director). Looks worth finding.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girls_(1968_film)
Post script: not an entirely lazy evening. A walk round the Thames to Hampton Court and back through Bushy Park with friends. About 10km including the walk back home from Kingston town centre. Nothing new to report. It was still very warm and quite humid - I quite envied the chap swimming in the river. Must give it a go. It’s been nearly 8 years since I did it.
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