Letter: Film memories

I was enjoying the photographs in your supplement In Our Time (15 January) when, on turning to page 20, I was astonished to find a photograph of me and some of my classmates outside the Cameo, which was showing Hamlet and Henry V. I still remember clearly both films.

Hamlet was shot in black and white, which gave it a suitably moody atmosphere, while Henry V, after the opening scenes, blossomed into glorious colour. Each featured a very young, handsome Laurence Olivier in the title role.

Out-of-school excursions to arts events were rare and these films were superb. I expect our English teacher, Miss Foster, who years before had taught Muriel Spark, would have organised the tickets.

However, I don't think the photograph could have been taken in the 1940s, as we would have been only six or seven years old, even by the end of 1949. I think it must have been a bit later than that.

(MRS) DIANE DAY

Braidwood Steading

Penicuik, Midlothian

In In Our Time, it states that John Buchan, author of The Thirty Nine Steps, introduced the reader to Richard Hannay as he scrambled across the Forth Bridge and the Highlands to escape capture.

I am afraid there is no mention of the Forth Bridge or the Highlands in the book. Mr Buchan had Hannay enter Scotland by the south-west and he was chased all over Galloway.

It was Alfred Hitchcock who changed the route, and the location, when making his film.

RICHARD PAGE

Burnfoot Road

Hawick