Background to the Calling Blighty Project

The background to the Calling Blighty film series was very thoroughly researched by Paul Sargent while he was Deputy Keeper of Film at the Imperial War Museum – the following brief summary is entirely based on Paul’s excellent work.

Between April 1944 and April 1946, there were 391 issues of Calling Blighty produced – that would be 9,775 messages with an average of c25 callers per issue! 64 are currently known to have survived, recording some 1,200 messages. None of these surviving issues came from official sources, but seem to have been retained locally in the communities where they were screened, and passed to film archives when they turned up.

Produced by the Directorate for Army Welfare in India during the Second World War, the Calling Blighty series of films was essentially a response to issues of low morale and poor welfare provision amongst service personnel stationed in the Far East – in India, Burma, Singapore, Malaya… This was a genuine attempt to improve communication with families back home who may not have seen their loved ones for as many as six years. Welfare amenities were poor, home leave was not possible, mail services were erratic, and the long separations were painful and difficult. Compared to those in the European theatre of war, these troops were truly the ‘Forgotten Army’.

British Movietone and Pathe had both used the idea briefly in newsreel stories, and Pathe had coined the name Calling Blighty after Movietone introduced the idea calling it Messages Home. However it was not really ‘news’ in their terms and it was suggested that it might be taken up officially, which it eventually was – by the Directorate of Services Kinematography in Delhi. Studio and location units recorded the messages, then edited, and despatched the finished films back to Blighty – four a week on average, and they would take six to eight weeks to arrive.

To produce an issue of Calling Blighty, the men – and a very few women (who served in very small numbers in the Far East) – would be brought together either in the studio or in their stations and camps. Crucially, they had to be from the same town, but they were not necessarily from the same regiments and often did not know each other. Messages were delivered direct to camera, no script or restrictions were imposed, though it seems prompts were in place as many use similar phrases, and since the messages were entirely one-way, they were usually short as the caller quickly ran out of things to say. When the individual messages had been delivered everyone would get together at the end to say cheerio, or sing a chorus - She’s a Lassie from Lancashire was a popular choice. A welfare officer would collect the name, rank, serial number and regiment of each individual, and the names and addresses of family and friends who they wished to invite to see the film back home in the local cinema. As it took up to eight weeks for the films to arrive, there was time to send letters of invitation and receive replies and numbers of attendees. Local cinemas would usually provide the screenings for free, often with hundreds in the audience.

After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, transport and forces were required for occupation and to deal with POWs, so there was no return home for these service personnel and some remained well into 1946. By April the film crews had dispersed and production ceased.