My brother’s brief stint as a film star

In 1948 my brother, then aged 10, ran home in Deal and announced “I’m a film star now”.

My mother dismissed it at the time as a bit of nonsense.

In 1951, our family emigrated to New Zealand, where the social highlight was the Friday night film show. In those days it was normal to start with a Popeye or Mickey Mouse cartoon. Following the interval, the Movietone or Pathe newsreel was shown, before the main feature film. My mother settled back on her wooden seat and, to her delight, the Pathe news came on featuring the Walmer lifeboat.

As she watched enthralled, hardly believing her luck at seeing her old hometown, she then spotted my brother David in the background! Incidentally, he didn’t become a film star - he was conscripted into the New Zealand Air Force at 18... Christine Rawlings