This week has been a great fact finding week for the Stella and Tiny documentary.
I received another letter from Scotland. A gentleman had read my letter in the paper and knew Stella and Tiny quite well, particularly during the late sixties and early seventies and, amazingly enough, he is actually in one of the films entitled “You in Your Small Corner”. He was also able to pass on the number of a lady called Morag who I spoke to on Thursday evening. Morag is a local resident of Muirhead and had known Stella and Tiny all of her life. She recalls them with great affection. Morag is collating a local history of the area and told me that local residents had wondered where the film “You in Your Small Corner” had gone.
“You in Your Small Corner” is a film following the seasons of Muirhead and Birkhill and shows the area in the late 50’s early 60’s. Talking to Morag and thinking over the coincidences that are unfolding I truly feel this is a good thing to be doing. I’ve also become quite keen that once the story of Stella & Tiny has been told I would like to return the footage to Scotland. What happens between now and then should make a good documentary.
Morag told me some great titbits about Stella and Tiny.
- Stella was an actual St. Trinnean’s pupil. The School was in Edinburgh, founded in 1922 by Miss C Fraser Lee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Trinian’s_School.
- Stella had been in the ARP Police (Air Raid Precautions) during WWII and Tiny was a Police Officer.
- On April 29th 1942 when returning from London, I’m not sure if they were returning from Honeymoon or moving back to Scotland but they were caught in the Baedecker raids on York. Losing all of their possessions during the bombing raid on York train Station. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baedeker.
- Later that year Tiny was sent to Canada as a RAF Navigator/Bomber and returned in 1946. Maybe this is where their love of travel came from.
- Morag also told me that Stella & Tiny to Africa and made a film about that as well (unfortunately I haven’t got that one, so If anyone out there has it please let me know).
- Stella was a great musician and left her Steinway grand piano to a local school when she passed away in 2003, she also did lots of work with the Dundee Rep Theatre. I have included 4 photo’s Morag sent me in an email of Stella on her Steinway.
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As you can see this week has been an exciting week, and I’m getting some good information and storys about Stella & Tiny. I am planning on going to Scotland next month to meet up with Morag and the local people to find out more and begin filming. I can’t wait. I was talking today with my friend Marc about how amazing this project is turning out to be. The seed for it all was a box of cine footage purchased off ebay 5 years ago, and now the footage will be returned to it’s home (via my documentary of course).