An inquiry to the Imperial War Museum for a BBC documentary I was making about the first world war led me to a phone conversation with the historian and writer Malcolm Brown.
He told me that during his former life in the BBC’s documentary department in the mid-1970s, he had made a film, The Battle of the Somme, to mark its 60th anniversary. It featured, so he told me, the actor Leo McKern dressed in a duffel coat, wandering around the Somme like a medieval minstrel, telling the terrible story. It sounded dreadful. So with a heavy heart and out of politeness, I retrieved the documentary from the film library expecting the worst.
Yes, the pictures were a bit scratchy, but Malcolm’s beautifully written commentary along with McKern’s delivery completely took me aback and my eyes filled with tears. I understood from this why Malcolm had gone on to become such a great writer and historian of the first world war.
