Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 46

life

INTERVIEW

Life,
camera,
action
A little boy discovers his
father was a spy. A young
man’s brainwave rocks the
financial world. A rookie
film director is befriended
by a Hollywood actress. A
man has a plan to focus
children on film. And this
is just one man’s story

HE’S a man so well rounded it’s hard to

things. Bill was about 11 and his father,

catch an edge with which to begin his

Desmond, a director of De Beers the

story.

diamond firm, was away on business. “I

craftsmanship of German guns, and

found some German sunglasses, some

indeed sunglasses, were not entirely

Bill Bristow has come to the Island

with a mission: to start a film festival for
children. “Children are amazing at using
the technology so available to make short
films and animations,” he says, “and I’d
love to showcase their creativity.” He’s
got the contacts to make this a reality:
but, more essentially, he’s got the drive.

Initial fobbings off about the better

satisfactory, and as he got older Bill

‘There was I, a berk
with a screenplay and
a rough idea!’

Bill’s life has been about making things
happen.

German gun?”

began drawing connections from
overheard conversations about the
infamous ‘third man.’ “I remembered the
name Kim Philby and I read back about
that time and went into the fact he’d
known all these double agents; then

German medals and a German pistol,”

that conversation I’d had with my father

says Bill. The questions he had for his

came back to me.” By judicious research

disaffection. “I had no idea what my

father burned inside him until he noticed

he discovered not just that Desmond had

father had done in the war. All the

in the newspaper a government call

been a spy, but that he had been head of

other boys at my boarding school could

for unlicensed guns to be handed in.

MI6 in Spain, Morocco, and Portugal from

say ‘my dad was a spitfire pilot’ or

He broached the subject with studied

1946 to 1954. He had been recruited

whatever,” says Bill. This led, one holiday,

nonchalance: “You know that gun, Dad .

after his degree at Cambridge – being

to a rummage around in his fathers’

. . and, by the way, why have you got a

au fait with Spain and its language made

His story starts with a sense of

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