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The story of an amateur filmmaker who captured his life on camera is to be told in the film's TV debut on BBC Scotland.

Born in Paisley in 1918, Harry Birrell was given a cine-camera at the age of 10, which as he himself noted was “the greatest toy a child could ever wish for.”

It sparked a lifetime obsession with film-making – never as a professional, but as a diligent amateur with a gift for the cinematic – chronicling his life experiences through the late 30s, World War II and then family life in the 60s and 70s.

Granddaughter Carina, an actor and producer, tells how she discovered a "treasure chest" of more than 400 film reels in the garden shed.

"I didn't know that this stuff existed. Diaries, photos albums and films," she tells Glasgow Live.

"They hadn't degraded or worn out so we realised we could do something with them. We wouldn't really know what was on them til we digitised them. That was incredibly exciting. It was like opening up a treasure chest."

Harry was passionate about film – never as a professional, but as a diligent amateur with a gift for the cinematic – chronicling his life experiences through the late 30s, World War II and then family life in the 60s and 70s.

Leaving Scotland temporarily for London, his camera captures the colourful cheerfulness and vibrancy in the years before the war, the joys of falling in love in the city and on leave in Arran.

And then the revelation of a posting to India as an officer with the Gurkhas in what has been called ‘the forgotten war’ against the Japanese as Burma fell and invasion threatened India.

Amid the chaos and tragedy, there is the experience of a truly exotic land and his ever growing respect and affection for the Gurkhas, stepping into a beautiful world which in normal times he would never have encountered.

The experience is lovingly rendered on colour film which Harry had asked the powers that be to give him so the viewer could see the difference between real foliage and camouflage netting - at least that is what he convincingly argued.

Back home in Scotland, he turned his eye to domestic life, with loving scenes of his children, family events and the changes in 70s Glasgow.

"My dad and sisters would tell me that every holiday, they would be up at 7am and told that they were filming. They never had a normal holiday!" Carina said, laughing. "Everything had to be filmed. It was a huge part of their day to day lives. Any kind of relevant moment in life had to be captured on camera, that has been passed on to us.

"I always remember him filming us. He was almost completely blind but he couldn't see enough to film and edit but he still loved it. It was his documentation of his life, his children and grandchildren."

Carina's favourite footage is from Harry's time in Nepal: "I love it, He takes them swimming in the sea and it becomes one of my favourite clips. It's quite a cathartic, uplifting scene during the war, despite that they didn't know what was about to happen.

"He invested so much in capturing things. Even in quite precarious situations he had the mind to get his camera out and get it on film. It felt like a gift to be given that opportunity to see some of the insights of what he was experiencing."

Produced by Hopscotch Films, and narrated by Richard Madden, the film had its premiere at the Glasgow Film Theatre last year; in the same auditorium where Harry screened his three-and-a-half-hour epic Looking Back in 1967, after turning down TV bosses' requests to cut it shorter for broadcast.

Carina shared fond memories of going to her granddad's cinema at his Giffnock home, which he built by knocking two upstairs bedrooms together. He would serving gin and tonics to the grown-ups as they all gathered to watch clips from the past.

"He only showed us the films he thought we would want to see, fun stuff of himself and his aunt when they were little. Unfortunately when I was seven or eight, I wasn't appreciating footage from Burma.

"He never spoke about his experiences from the war to us. It was a way to move on from a time like that.

"Harry spoke about at the end of the film as an adventure, that it was so different from civilian life that they didn't know how they would adapt to a mundane, domestic life afterwards. "

Harry sadly passed away in 1993, aged 74 – but the legacy he leaves behind lives on.

Carina said: "My generation take for granted how easy it is to document our social lives from the day-to-day compared to somebody in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. We took more photos in 2018 than the whole of time.

"It's great to see how they lived without smartphones. It takes real dedication and there's something magical about film.

"My grandad took an objective point of view on the role he was given during the war. He knew what he captured would be of relevance for the future. It really makes you think about ways in which ordinary life can be quite extraordinary. "

Watch Harry Birrell: Films of Love & War on BBC Scotland on Tuesday, March 17 at 10pm.