'The room lit up when he entered'

Because my father, Humphrey Jennings, died so young, and because we were in the United States for four years during the war, I knew him well only in the last six years of his life, when I was a teenager. After the war, my mother and father, my younger sister and I lived in a small flat in London. Then I felt that I began to know him and his work extremely well.

He was thin, blond and blue-eyed, not very tall, and immensely active. He had a vivid personality - the room lit up for me when he entered. He talked fast, and wanted to tell whoever was around about what he was working on. This was not only about making films, but about the books he was reading, exhibitions he had seen and where he had been recently.

At home he was always working. Because the flat was small, he worked in the sitting room with us around him while he was drawing, painting, writing or reading. My mother would read aloud to us in the evening while he worked. He was always ready to explain about what he had found exciting. I particularly remember his great interest in early science, from 17th-century publications by the Royal Society.

Jennings filming Fires Were Started

He was incredibly fussy about his books, some of which were very valuable. I would ask him whether I could look at one and he would ask whether I had clean hands. Pen and ink were never allowed near them, and I would sit on the sofa, turning the pages carefully from the top right hand corner. Listening to music on the radio also meant sitting in silence. The present habit of having the radio on all the time as background would have been anathema to him.

He was great fun to go out with, whether to exhibitions or the cinema or to a restaurant. He went to exhibitions in the National Gallery almost once a week when he was in London, and was anxious to draw our attention to tiny details in paintings. He took us to films that we probably would have missed: Russian and French films in particular. But he would also go to whatever was on at the local cinema. I remember going to see The Third Man with him, and his burst of enthusiasm for it as we left the cinema in Kentish Town.

As a treat he would take us to the Players Theatre, the Victorian music-hall under the arches off the Strand. During the war he and many others had used the theatre as a sort of air-raid shelter, and he was well known there. Part of the fun was the repartee between the audience and Leonard Sachs, the master of ceremonies. My father was adept as this, and took part enthusiastically.

As children, however, we were intensely embarrassed by my father drawing attention to himself, even though he was very funny. On the other hand, we loved the show, singing: 'Oh the fairies, whoa the fairies', and hearing Hattie Jacques in 'The Spaniard That Blighted My Life' - and the wonderful Christmas pantomime was a great treat. My father's first love had been the theatre, and I am only sorry I did not go with him more often.

There is no doubt that he was impatient of others, and he had a short fuse. The disadvantage of living in a small flat was that when he was working at home we had to be very quiet; the slightest noise would bring roars of complaint. He could be very funny, telling stories about his work, but sometimes our laughter would turn to tears when he complained about our behaviour.

He bought us beautiful presents. In 1947 he went to Burma for four months. When he returned he brought dolls in Burmese costume, hats and exquisite boxes made of woven bamboo and decorated with bright lacquer.

Walking with him in town was exciting because he had a wide circle of friends and greeted people enthusiastically. It was the same in Paris, where I was with him in 1949. He knew Paris well, having been there regularly since he was a child, and I began to see Paris through his eyes. He said of the statue of Henri IV seen across the Pont Henri IV: 'That is the most beautiful view in Paris.'

His sudden death in Greece was the most appalling shock, from which, 50 years later, I don't think I have quite recovered.

Mary-Lou Legg teaches Irish history at Birkbeck College, London. She edited her father's book, Pandaemonium: the Coming of the Machine in the Industrial Revolution.

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