DAVID'S ACCOUNTS BOOK 1962-1976, has 12 double page spreads noting what films he worked on, how much he was paid and by which production company. It is a simple lined format note book measuring 12 x 20 cms. It traces his own advancing fortunes and contacts in the film industry and reveals a fascinating trajectory from British Transport Films through early features and TV commercials up to 1st May 1976, and the shooting of Joseph Andrews.

He was always scornful of my interest in the history of TV commercials until the last year of his life when he started watching some of the documentaries I had recorded off air. Clara has more detail than Thesaurus of the making of commercials but he never lost a dismissive attitude to what had been a lucrative form of employment. My thoughts on the way his new techniques of lighting defined a new visual clarity in the service of advertising domestic products received a cursory nod. He was particularly attracted by the prospects of earning large amounts for less work, and getting back to Brighton often in the same day.

Please keep this accounts book safe, I asked. "Take it.." he said with an airy wave. As a reflection of his earlier anxieties with the Internal Revenue authorities, he did have second thoughts but preferred the opportunity of getting rid of clutter to cast-iron guarantees of anonymity.

COMMENTARY

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