The Queen of Sheba's Pearls

For a while I was more interested in how the presence of such an outstanding Irish figure as Lorcan Cranitch in the family was going to be explained. When given it made sense. In the meantime the mystery of how Jack's aunt could pop up from nowhere and somehow have been overlooked by her mother kept us glued to the screen. There was however one major gaffe at the beginning of the film. When Jack is boarding the train to take him to his grandmother, the fact that it is wartime Britain is illustrated by not only Jack, but a number of others on the platform, all carrying the general issue cardboard gas mask boxes strung from their shoulders. This would place the scene in either 1939 or even perhaps the end of 1940, since those boxes soon dropped to pieces, and a large variety of other containers were used and came into fashion. I remember having mine replaced with a chocolate coloured round tin cannister. Ladies were able to buy containers resembling handbags, but round at the bottom, and wide and flat at the top, with matching straps. It was quite a blow when the fact that Jack's mother had died eight years before the King, was revealed. I was on embarkation leave when the King died in February 1952 so remember the time well. Eight years earlier put the death of Jack's mother around the beginning of 1944. At that time I doubt whether a single person still carried a gas-mask, never mind a brand new cardboard box.