After swapping my Saturday shift this coming weekend with a Sunday shift last weekend to help a colleague, I found myself with 5 whole days off work this week.

I say five days off but what I really mean is, 2 days off and 3 trying to get an essay finished and some studying done!!

A couple of months ago, me and Ian decided to do an outdoor cinema experience when we found an advert for a showing of the digitally remastered copy of the 1958 film ‘Dunkirk’ starring John Mills.
Luna Cinema were going to be airing it on Camber Sands in the south of England on the very beach where it was filmed and also the recent remake was filmed.

We found a local chalet to hire for the evening and decided to make a day of it.
We arrived in Camber at around 12:30 and found a beautiful little pub called ‘The Owl’.
Very friendly, lovely old pub with wonderful food and excellent service.
We took a walk along the beach to check out where we would have to go in the evening and then we went to check into our chalet.

The weather wasn’t great and the wind was picking up. It was very exposed and the evening was going to be a little chilly.
The video shows where the screen was being set up at the end of the beach.

The chalet was not quite what we expected.
A lot smaller than it looked in the photos and we were unaware that the bed was on a mezzanine level accessed via a ladder and the toilet and shower were outside!!
Anyway, it was an overpriced roof over our heads for the night but we won’t be staying there again!

Anyway, we headed over to the event at around 17:30 and were surprised to find our old friends, Mick and Chris had decided to join us.

We mooched around the period vehicles and had a drink while enjoying period dance lessons (without taking part) before we headed over the dune to the beach itself.

We made ourselves as comfortable as we were going to get and then waited for the film to start.
We had a lovely surprise when the film was introduced by none other than Hayley Mills! The actress daughter of the star of the film, John Mills.

It was the first time I had seen the film!
I was suitably impressed and liked the way it showed more of the run up to the evacuation and how the small boats became involved and what went on back home. It also made more of an impact on the scale of it with the amount of soldiers on the beach. The recent re-make concentrated more on the evacuation and didn’t quite get the same feel for scale, even though it’s a good film in it’s own right.

We were very lucky with traffic both too and from the event. The only slow down was getting over the Dartfor crossing, but even then, the traffic didn’t stop.

Now it’s time to meet Marjorie in town for a meal for her 18th birthday and then home and a quick trip over the road for her first legal drink at the bluebell!!