Grandfather's Footsteps (1983)

Overview

My Mother found an old cigar box full of glass negatives, stereoscopic views, mostly of the Somerset countryside taken by my great grandfather Henry Stiles Savory, who was a country clergyman. Later some more boxes of his negatives turned up at a country house sale. I printed them and made enlargements from some of them, and a few years later the idea came to me to use them in a film. 'In Grandfather's Footsteps the film-maker re-evokes the presence of her great-grandfather, Henry Stiles Savory, a Victorian clergyman, photographer and scientist. It's not a costume drama, bringing in his writings, and his personal effects - books, machines, photographs - Anne Rees-Mogg emphasizes her own links with him and his preoccupations. She achieves a real sense of timelessness.' - Jo Comino