Former Northern Echo staff member Tony Marshall and his college friend Trevor Griffiths, both aviation and military vehicle enthusiasts, came to the rescue of a Hollywood blockbuster. Tony tells the tale here:
"Our involvement started with a phone call in 2006, from a friend, who had been contacted by the military props buyer for Plus Films.
They required 30-plus pre-1941 vehicles and artillery, for a beach scene at Redcar, near Middlesbrough, which was doubling as Dunkirk in a film adaptation of the 2001 novel Atonement by Ian McKewan.
As many will know, Dunkirk was a victorious retreat – we managed to rescue most of the men of the British Expeditionary Force, but not their vehicles and equipment – so finding these is no easy task – luckily, several local members of the North East Military Vehicle Club had them.
We submitted a selection of photographs for approval. Out of the 30 required, 21 were from this area and two of them belonged to Trevor and myself. The rest were trailered up from the South.
The film crew had been on site at Redcar for six weeks and had built buildings, bandstands, false roofs, shutters, canopies etc. erected new lamposts, imported tons of sand and rubble, transforming the Coatham end of the town totally.
When we finally drove on set with our vehicles we were amazed.
A Saturday two days prior to the start of filming, was the only day available for transportation. The larger vehicles were unloaded at the Corus steel works at Lackenby, where some of the more dangerous stunts were to be enacted, and another base was set up near an old Leisure Centre on the sea front.
Unfortunately, the way the set was constructed meant that to gain access, Trevor had to drive his tracked Carrier over a mile through the busy Saturday streets of Redcar.
But despite me driving in front with the hazard lights on the Land Rover, cars were still trying to nip in between us.
Once there, we were joined by the rest of the vehicles, as well as a host of film-prop copies which were to be buried in the sand and the sea.
The small Morris Commercial replicas were made on a Land Rover chassis, steered and had very passable bodywork. There were about ten of them and they had cost about £2,000 apiece to produce.
The most spectacular piece of kit on the beach was a replica of a Thames sailing barge, it was more than 90 feet long and had arrived on low loaders in four sections. These sections were then joined together and the masts, sails, and rigging erected.
The sails were new and a chap spent all day Saturday shredding them. It had a large hidden door in the side and was used for storage by the set painters.
Once our vehicles were in position, our final task of the day was to scatter old coats, barbed wire, broken furniture, ammo boxes and fish crates about on the beach and let the art department “muddy up” the vehicles.
We were supposed to stay on set for four days, being put up in a hotel at Stockton. But as it was only seven miles from home, after the first night, we passed on the other three.
Two of our friends did the full four days, in order to look after the vehicles and they both ended up appearing in the film. The next day saw us back on set, where we positioned all the artillery along the sea front and placed five of the larger vehicles on the sand, out of the tide-line.
We did a lot of mechanical work and towing as some of the vehicles had become really stubborn to start.
During the afternoon we noticed the back of a large modern Scania truck being partly covered in sand and then left. We later discovered that it was being used as a sand dune for the close-up dialogue shots involving the main actors.
It was an interesting few days and the weather was kind. The crew who were mainly from London, were good company and friendly. They couldn’t believe how cheap the food and drink was!
We were told later that the set and filming at Redcar cost about £4.5m and was on the screen for about nine minutes."
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