Bill Douglas’s films My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home are three of the most compelling and critically acclaimed films about childhood ever made. The narrative is largely autobiographical, following Jamie (played with heart-breaking conviction by Stephen Archibald) as he grows up in a poverty-stricken mining village in post-war Scotland. In these brutal surroundings, and subject to hardship and rejection the boy learns to fend for himself. We see him grow from child to adolescent – angry and bewildered but playful creative and affectionate. But these films are not a depressing experience. Jamie is a survivor, bold and curious. The cinematography is beautiful, creating visual poetry from startling, bleak monochrome images. When Bill Douglas died in 1991, British cinema lost one of its most original, and neglected artists.
