Trace and Tell your Family's Empire Stories
Introduction
BAFTA-winning film-maker Peter Kosminsky, the man behind Britz, The Government Inspector and Warriors among many other award-winning dramas and drama-documentaries - is writing a new film and would very much value the help of Empire's Children users. Read the chapter for details.
Browser by chapterLatest: Dear Maragret, Thanks so much for your posting and...
BAFTA-winning film-maker Peter Kosminsky, the man behind Britz, The Government Inspector and Warriors among many other award-winning dramas and drama-documentaries - is writing a new film and would very much value the help of Empire's Children users.
The film is partly set in 1940s Palestine. Peter has looked at various contributions on the subject on Empire's Children and has requested the following information from anyone who can help:
"I'd like to hear from or about those caught up in the events in British Mandate Palestine (on any side) between 1945 and 1948. In particular, people who saw action in the Second World War and then became involved in Palestine, as well as those who lived there before 1939 and watched the huge influx of Jewish refugees in the aftermath of the War.
I'm also especially interested in the stories of any soldiers who fought with the British in the Second World War -having been trained by the British army or services, possibly actually members of the British army - only to find themselves, between 1945 and 1948, facing off militarily against their former comrades."
Please post any stories or relevant information here on Empire's Children and Peter will ask any follow up questions via the site. Thanks for any help you are able to give. We will keep you posted on the progress of the script and production.
Time: 17:47 Date: Feb 06, 2008
Dear Maragret, Thanks so much for your posting and the information about your trilogy of novels. Kindest, Rosanne
Time: 22:05 Date: Jan 25, 2008
Just a Post Script to my last comment. It is more in the second, unpublished novel 'Spreading Battered Wings' '1942-1947 rather than in 'Struggling Free' (i938-1942' where I explore the ramifications of the co-operation between the Palmach and the British in the preparations for guerrilla resistance against German Invaders. The first novel explores the pre-War Trouble and the early days of the war in Palestine including the internal role of Aliyah Beth. (ThePatria does come into it I had first hand experience of watching the rescue attempts from Allenby Park on Mt Carmel standing next to my father)
Time: 21:40 Date: Jan 25, 2008
Dear Rosanne and Peter, I would be very pleased to help with your film. As you can see from my entry I was in Palestine for some of the relevant time. I wish though that you would include the era between 1938 and 1945. This is a very neglected area of Mandate History. The assumption is that nothing much happened except the Patria but in reality those years are action packed. The Palmach's sense of betrayal after al-Alamein is crucial to understanding the subsequent conflict between Zionists and British. The first novel 'Struggling Free' of my intended trilogy 'Land of Broken Promises', exploring the triangular conflict and occasional co-operation between Palestinian Arabs, Palestinian Jews and the British and was published in November 2006. You might be interested in reading it. I have written the second novel of the trilogy but am not seeking publication until I have finished the third. I have also written a memoir of my childhood which again I am not seeking to publish until after I have finished the trilogy'
Time: 15:15 Date: Jan 07, 2008
I’m helping Peter research his film and I just wanted to say thanks again to Adam and to everyone who has contacted us. I’ve been accumulating some fascinating stories. Today I spoke to Marjorie Crown who went to Palestine with the Royal Air Force towards the end of the Second World War to work in code and cipher signals. Marjorie was infected with septicaemia and was in the British military hospital at the top of the Mount of Olives when the King David Hotel was bombed on 22 July 1946. She vividly remembers the ambulances racing up and down the mountain bringing victims to the hospital and returning to the scene. She also remembers happier times, visiting Jewish friends on one side of the mount and Arab friends on the other, and buying beautiful, hand-woven, ivory brocade for her wedding dress. Marjorie met her future husband in Palestine, a soldier ten years her junior working in British intelligence. She returned home on a hospital ship and when the British mandate came to an end a year later, he followed her back to England. They were married in 1948. Please do keep posting any other such recollections of Palestine between 1945 and 1948, they are enormously helpful and we will keep you up to date with the progress of the film.
Time: 10:40 Date: Dec 11, 2007
Peter Kosminsky here. Just wanted to express my thanks to Channel Four and, in particular, to Adam Gee for allowing me to post this request on his excellent website. My colleagues and I would be very keen to begin a dialogue with Empire's Children. Please do post any thoughts or memories can. Best wishes Peter Kosminsky
By Rosanne