Gateshead VE Day film descendants gather to watch ancestors

Relatives of people captured on high-quality cine film during VE Day street celebrations in May 1945 have gathered to watch them.

For some, it was the first time they had seen their wartime ancestors on film.

The scenes were shot in Gateshead by off-duty police officer John McHugh, who had access to a camera loaded with 16mm Kodachrome film – a rare commodity during the war.

The clarity of the pictures he produced meant many of those captured by his lens were recognisable by later generations.

The reels are preserved at the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive at Teesside University.

Last month, the BBC appealed for relatives of those in the video to come forward, which led to some of them meeting for the first time to talk about their family members who were recorded celebrating in street parties in long-demolished terraces.

Victoria Najafi spotted her great-grandmother, Vera McLoughlin, who appeared in the footage holding a white jug.

“I said immediately to my mother ‘that’s Grandma’ – and she said ‘yes it is’.

“Vera had a smile that went into the corner of her mouth, and it’s on a lot of the photographs that I’ve got.”

Russell Gilchrist was alerted to his own father’s presence in the film by a relative who had seen the BBC appeal on the other side of the world.

“A few days after you showed it, my mam’s cousin from New Zealand sent us a message – ‘I’ve just seen your dad on the telly’,” Mr Gilchrist said.

“They’d shown the exact same film over there and he got a video of it and said ‘yes, it’s definitely your dad’.”

Many of those captured on film had been bereaved by the war.

Sisters Lindsay Trench and Andrea Marshall spotted their mother and grandmother, standing with the family dog. Their mother, Aileen Crooks, had lost her first husband early in the conflict.

Ms Trench said: “They knew they had to carry on, because they knew so many people had given their lives for them, so they could get on with their life. It made my heart sing to see her.

“We tend to forget how things were. Some people nowadays need a reminder of everything people have done for them in the past, so that we can all live the lives we’ve got now.”

You can see the full film of the VE Day celebrations in Gateshead here.