Harry Birrell

Biography

Harry Birrell was given his first cine-camera as a boy in 1928 and spent his life recording incidents great and small - his entertaining and errant adventures are recorded in over 400 films, diaries and photographs that were recently brought to life by his granddaughter, Carina Birrell.

His home movies of family events and fine romances now ache with fond nostalgia but Harry's life was also filled with far away adventures and the film captures a vivid sense of wartime years spent in Bombay, the jungles of Burma and the mountains of Nepal. From commanding a battalion of Gurkhas in the Indian army at the start of the WWII, to a dangerous mission deep behind enemy lines in Burma at the war’s e...