I was born Roland Frederick Godfrey on may 27th 1921, son of Roland Charles Godfrey and Lucy Rachel Godfrey (nee Butler) at Horseshoe Berch West Maitland, New South Wales Australia, backwards and, if you take the British view of the world, upside down. My parents had gone to Australia after the first World War on an ex-serviceman’s immigration scheme.  My mother took an instant dislike to wide open spaces so we came home to Ilford, Essex when I was about six months old.  My father got a job burning refuse in a place called a “Dust Destructer”, run, by his brother-in-law.

We lived in Ilford from 1924 to 1940. I had an ordinary council school education. I was good at History and drawing, not much else, I never passed any exams, until I got to Leyton Art School when I was fourteen. I saw a lot of films, I loved Popeye, Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. I wasn’t in the least interested in how films were made. I suppose in those days I wanted to be a Easle painter like Van Gogh. My first job at the age of seventeen was as an errand boy with Unilever Ltd at Blackfriars. Eventually I was transferred to the art studio of Unilever advertising agency, Lintas, I was still a runner but a white artist smock came with the job.

World War 2 broke our and we moved from Ilford to Twickenham in Surrey to get a little further away from the bombing, five minutes flying time for a bomber. Lintas moved to Selfridge annex off Oxford Street.  Most of my friends were captured at Dunkirk. In 1941 I joined the Royal Marines, I served from April 1941 to January 1946. I got my old job back, well not exactly my old job, you can’t very well be an errand boy at twenty six. I was a sub size lay out artist, a very uncreative and boring pastime. I missed the romantic life of a service man, I was fed up with living at home with my parents.

In 1947 I married Beryl Sonia Chapman. I was twenty six, she was nineteen. I left Lintas and worked for David Hand, an old Disney director, on something called ancillaries, these days it’s called merchandising, painting rabbits and parrots on shoe boxes, pretty depressing.  I was fired and worked as a freelance. Our first daughter was born in 1949, I worked as a plasterer’s mate, and then came a chance meeting that changed my life.  I was given a job by Peter Sachs of the W.M. Larkins Animation Studios 51 Charles Street Mayfair. Peter being German and Jewish was interned on the Isle of Man during the war but was released to work on wartime propaganda films. He made me a background artist, working on scenery for his animated cartoons, he never taught me anything about how films were made. Cartoon Studios were very departmentalised in those days. I worked at Larkin’s for about four years.

I moved my small family to Tufnell Park in North London.  This flat had a basement which I converted into a camera room, helped by Keith Learner, a boy of seventeen who knew lighting and camera inside out and Jeff Hale, an ex-Royal College student who could draw. We set about making primitive cartoons. Our first cartoon “Watch the Birdie” on 16mm was made in this basement, we also made Live Action comedies, with myself as the comedian and Keith Learner on camera. One such film “Here comes the Commercial” was shown on the Goon Show.

It was obvious to Peter Sachs that we were no longer interested in artistic industrial films and we were fired. Getting fired was getting repetitive and boring so we decided to start our own company called Biographic (1954).  We moved to 11 Noel Street in Soho. We called ourselves BIOGRAPHIC after the oldest cinema in London, the BIOGRAPH because our equipment went back to the Ark. I was using an old Moy and Basti handle turn wooden box.

This biography was written by Bob, but never completed. A full version will be up soon!