Gan-Gan

The film that started it all.

My grandmother Elizabeth (or Gan-Gan as I called her) was a force of nature; she was wonderful. As a child she seemed to me like a visitor from another time or place. Her tiny terraced house in Bideford was full of treasures; hundreds of books, a medusa's head, Peter the Great's ivory letter opener, the caul of her mother tied up in blue ribbon, a tile stolen from the Alhambra, a silk blouse embroidered by nuns, deadly poison, beautiful Pre-Raphaelite artworks, a knife carved from the wood of HMS Victory, Granny Green's pince-nez, and diaries full of stories from a hard life well-lived.

After her death in 2010, I helped my father and uncle sort through some of her possessions. I inherited some of her clothes to wear, books to read, a bicycle to ride. But how do you make sense of all the other things that someone leaves behind, the things nobody sees, boxes full of photographs, and bits of string?

I used these objects alongside images and memories of my own to make this short animation, which I dedicate to her memory.

Music by George Manson

Elizabeth Boat made by Rachel Sumner

Excerpts taken from ‘The Fairies’ by William Allingham and ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save’ (The Naval Hymn) by William Whiting.