Old friend Simon from SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) days chanced upon a copy of the coffee table book I’d worked on in the early 80s. It was to go with The Heart of the Dragon, a 12-part Channel Four TV documentary series on China, launched in January 1984. (Yes, 40 years ago already!!)
I then stumbled across the series on YouTube, uploaded only a year ago by one of the three editors, Laurence Williamson. (Thank you, Laurence!)
The opening episode, Remembering, is a summary of the history of China pre- and post-1949.
In the pre-1949 section, old documentary news footage of the civil war in China in the 30s and 40s was used as a backdrop to the narration.
Among the scenes of people fleeing, shots of wartime equipment (military trucks, e.g.) and soldiers (including non-Chinese ones), especially in Shanghai (I think), also flashed across the screen, but only for a few seconds before the narration moved on to another historical slot.
After that episode was aired on Channel Four in late January 1984, we got a letter in the post from an old woman (white, British) who said she recognised her husband in one of those quick flash-by archive footage shots, asking if she could have a copy of that shot of him for keepsake.
I went through the footage and found the segment she was referring to. It was a split second shot, and only featured him from the side, yet that lady recognised him immediately — and some 50 years back as well when he was a young man.
The brain is an amazing organ, indeed.
(London, 1984)
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