SOLDIERS stationed in India during the Second World War felt like a ‘forgotten army’.

With home leave impossible from such a distance and a hit and miss postal service, the Army film unit had an unusual solution to overcome this sense of isolation.

India Calling Blighty was a series of films that provided visual messages from the men to their relatives and friends back home.

Kathleen Shorrock of Blackburn, now in her eighties, remembers being one of those invited to a cinema in Preston to see one such newsreel in 1944.

She went with her older sister Evaline, whose boyfriend Craftsman Ronald Whaley, serving with the REME in India, was among the personnel with a message for home.

Kathleen said: “We were in a state of great excitement as we hadn’t seen him for more than three years and was such a relief to see him safe and well, though very emotional, too.”

Nearly 400 films were made in ‘44 and ‘45, although only around 50 still survive today, and they were all well received by relatives and friends, and did much to boost morale.

Ron, who lived in Branch Road, Samlesbury, worked for Porter, Matthews and Marsden accountants before joining the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in the early days of the war.

He served for two years before moving to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers on its formation.

In a letter home during his service in India, he described a visit to Darjeeling and a week’s stay in Himalayan country.

His journey from Calcutta, took him on twists and turns, double loops and spirals on a 7,000 ft climb on a little railway, passing through jungles of banana date and coconut.

At a Tibetian monastery they saw a 15ft tall statue of Buddha, covered with stones and jewels and sat on a chair covered with gold leaf and studded with more precious stones.

Ron wrote: “From the vantage point of Tiger Hill, at, 8,500 ft high at sunrise, one morning, the sight was a never-to-be forgotten one.

“From east to west in a huge semi circle was the icy waste of the Himalayas, all covered orange with the long rays of the morning sun and in front of them the other ranges of a purple hue.

“The clouds made it a real castle in the air picture and we saw Everest peeping out 130 miles away; I wouldn’t have missed such pictures for a pension.”

* Ron and Evaline were married just 10 days after he came home from the Far East, in November 1945, at St Silas Church, Blackburn, followed by a wedding breakfast in the parish hall.

Fifteen-year-old Kathleen was a proud bridesmaid.