That’s my grandad! Woman’s shock on watching WW1 film
A FLEETING glimpse of a nose in a First World War documentary was enough for a woman to recognise her grandfather.
Jenny Pateman told yesterday how she was “gobsmacked” and moved to tears as she watched Peter Jackson’s acclaimed film They Shall Not Grow Old.
She was immediately – and rightly – convinced she had spotted her late grandfather, Corporal Thomas Frayne whom she had only known as a bedridden pensioner.
From her home in Canvey Island, Essex, she said: “It was a complete shock.
“I had to rewind and pause it.” Mrs Pateman, 55, was only eight when her grandfather died.
“It was in 1971, when he was 77,” she explained.
“He got gassed at the Somme and never fully recovered. I only ever knew him as a man in bed.”
Cpl Frayne lost a lung after being overcome by mustard gas in the attack. Mrs Pateman spotted her grandfather when he appeared early in the footage.
She said: “As the camera panned he was there, walking with other troops. He’s got a distinctive nose. My brother is the spitting image and I had seen him in photographs.
“I rewound the footage, paused it and said to my husband, ‘That’s my grandad’.
“I was really gobsmacked. It brought tears to my eyes, seeing him walking along as a young man.”
Director Jackson, who came to prominence with his film adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, used footage from the Imperial War Museum for his film of troops in the trenches, added colour and slowed down the scenes to give them a new lease of life.
He said he hoped that the film would prompt people to investigate their relatives’ past before memories were lost for ever.