Bernard King

A brief and partial biography of Bernard King, a friend and an interesting character.

First Meeting

I first came across Bernard King through an article he wrote about the Titfield Thunderbolt in 1994. After writing to him through the magazine, we exchanged various letters and telephone conversations before finally meeting in May of 1997. Since then I have enjoyed the hospitality and friendship of both Bernard and his wife Jean, and been privileged to learn a little of how Bernard came to write that article. Bernard makes little of his involvement with the Titfield Thunderbolt, but I think his story is f ascinating.

I am sure Bernard would not mind my saying that he is a very talented individual, an accomplished photographer and modeller, his abiding passion in life is film, and everything connected with it. He is very knowledgable and quite well known in this area, and has contributed a great deal to journals and museums within the film industry.

War Service and an Interest

Bernard was first introduced to the subject by an elder brother setting up a projector and home made screen around 1935. Having left school, he was enjoying his first professional photographic experience as a Photostat camera operator and processor when his call up papers arrived in the spring of 1942. Selecting the RAF, and taking the advice of an elder brother, Bernard and his twin brother Reg both expressed a preference for training as a Wireless Operators. However, despite Bernard's dogged determination, he found that he was unable to surmount the hurdle of more than eight words per minute in morse code - an essential requirement for wireless operation. He was given a final extra chance to achieve this in the converted Feldman's Ballroom on the seafront at Blackpool, but the tooting of the passing trams interfered with the tooting of the morse signals, and the eight words per minute barrier remained unbroken.

Bernard's luck then took a turn for the better, as he avoided being posted without option into the newly-formed RAF Regiment, the usual fate of failed wireless operators. Bernard was instead successful in requesting a re-muster to photographer. Perhaps the RAF took pity as they were parting twin brothers, something they were apparently loth to do. Bernard then spent an interesting nine months training on air camera and photographic work at 41OTU (Operational Training Unit) based at Old Sarum near Salisbury, and later at Harwarden near Chester.

Lavatorial Interlude

As a photographer under training, the formal photographic course was eagerly awaited, but Bernard suddenly received an unwelcome posting to RAF Odiham, where, without full "trade" status, he found himself cleaning toilets! A swift visit to the station's Education Officer thankfully resulted in an almost immediate re-posting to the No. 2 School of Photography at Blackpool. Bernard describes his spell of "bog cleaning" at Odiham as the most degrading experience of his life, especially when he had to push his trolley of toilet rolls, brushes and buckets past Mk 1 Mustang aircraft, identical to those on which he had been working for the previous nine months.

In the Box

Passing the course, Bernard was posted back to RAF Harwarden, and it was here that his "cinematic senses" quickly directed his attention towards the Gymnasium, which had miraculously been converted into a cinema during his absence. In Bernard's estimation , this was a wonderful opportunity, a fair sized palace of pictures which he simply had to get involved in. The job of chief projectionist had quite properly been given to an experienced peace time camera operator, one Corporal Bob Rowley. It wasn't long however, before Bob had fallen prey to Bernard's persuasive line in projection room chat, resulting in Bernard's spending long spells in the "box".

Here Bernard learned about projection room work under trying war time conditions. Damaged film prints on nitrate stock and poor quality carbons in the arc lamps were some of the problems faced, all of which required a high degree of skill and an adaptable approach from the operators, something to which Bernard was, and remains, very well suited.

The near daily routine then became 9am to 6pm working as a photographer, followed by work from 6.15pm to around 11pm as a "moonlighting" projectionist. This carried on for well over a year, five nights per week showing two films every night - in Bernard's own words, "All wonderful experience".

Peacetime Pursuits

Following demob in 1946, Bernard took a job as a film projectionist with the Odeon at Kingston, but found the work too repetitive, showing the same programme twice a day for a week at a time. Consequently he joined the Director of Overseas Survey, an overseas version of the Ordnance Survey, where he used his skills as a Cartographer until retirement. He pursued his interest in films vigorously however, maintaining his links with the Kingston Odeon. Bernard also, in collaboration with his twin brother, came up with a cunning ruse to get invited to and involved with films, and in particular Ealing Studios. This idea came about following Bernard and Reg's photography of the filming of Ealing's "Passport To Pimlico" on location in the summer of 1948.

Ealing Involvements

It is difficult to imagine now, in the age of mass merchandising, but cinema managers and owners used to mount their own publicity for different films, albeit taking their cue from the film studios who provided material and ideas. For example, in the case of the Titfield Thunderbolt, one suggestion was that tickets be printed in the form of railway tickets, and there were also "cut out" card models amongst many other ideas.

Bernard and Reg's particular skills were in the area of model making, and it was with the idea of making publicity models that Bernard and Reg planned to get invited to Ealing. After writing a letter to Ealing in the Spring of 1949 agreement was reached in principle, and Bernard and Reg in company with Pete Sherington (the chief operator at the Kingston Odeon) together with a colleague from work visited the set of "The Lavender Hill Mob". Bernard received his reply from Baynham Honri, the technical supervisor at Ealing, and at the studios they met Jim Morahan, one of Ealing's Art Directors. They were surprised to discover that Jim lived in Kingston, and that the Odeon was a cinema he visited frequently. Apparently, Ealing used to show just one preview of any new film at the studios, and if you missed it for any reason, then you had to pay to see the film at the cinema with the public - even if you were the Art Director! No doubt several useful connections were made on that day. On later visits to the studios, Bernard met with Len Wills, who acted as assistant art director to C.P. Norman on the "Titfield Thunderbolt", and it was Len who subsequently helped in providing useful material and photographs for building the publicity models

The studios sent dyelines and photographs to Bernard and Reg, and the Passport to Pimlico model was successfully made and used for publicity at the Odeon in Kingston. This model still exists, and in the spring of 1997, Bernard donated it to the Lambeth Heritage Archive, seeking to find an appropriate home for this interesting part of British film history.

Bernard and Reg then missed out Ealing's next production, "Mandy", despite being sent the dyelines from Ealing, as this was to be shown at the Granada cinema in Kingston. In general, film releases from Ealing went alternately to two distributors, Gaumont and Odeon, (the Granada was used in Kingston, as there was no Gaumont cinema in the town), and Bernard and Reg tried to pick model making for those films which would be shown on release at the Odeon, because of their links there.

If you examine Ealing's output over this period, then you will see that there were more potentially appropriate film releases than there were model making projects from Bernard and Reg. However, they both got married over this period, Bernard to Jean in 1948 and Reg to Alice in 1949, and this coupled with the essential setting up of homes inevitably took attention away from what was only ever a hobby activity. In any event, the next model they made was for "Secret People", a relatively minor Ealing production before they embarked upon their final collaboration with Ealing, "The Titfield Thunderbolt".

Monkton Combe

Bernard's Sister and her husband lived near Bath, and Bernard and Jean were quite frequent visitors to their cottage in Batheaston, having even visited during their honeymoon in 1948. On these visits they used to explore the area, and this was how in the summer of 1951 Bernard found himself in Monkton Combe, a picturesque village just south of Bath. As the party walked down a hill towards the village mill, they came across a disused station, complete with all its fittings, but completely deserted. Whilst Bernard was not a railway enthusiast he was quite taken with the scene, and being interested in unusual camera angles took a single photograph through the mesh of the level crossing gates. Thinking of the captured scene as nothing more than a "nice picture", he carried on with the walk.

Some months later Bernard was reading his copy of "Cinema News and Property Gazette", a film industry trade magazine, when he was surprised to read that Monkton Combe Station was to be used by Ealing Studios for a forthcoming production, a coincidence which Bernard would use to visit the set the following summer.

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The information on this site is made freely available and you are welcome to quote from it, but please acknowledge Simon Castens and this site as the source.