Travellers Tale

It was late, after one o’clock in the morning, in a youth hostel in Berlin. The bar in the lobby was packed full of people and there was a feverish excitement in the air. A bus- load of Australians, New Zealanders and English were on their way later that day for a weekend in Prague and the booze, it is fair, to say was free flowing. I was at a table with a young American film student. We had just been admitting that Titanic had some virtues and then he asked me who my favourite director was. I thought for a moment. On a different day I might have named someone like Howard Hawks or Michael Powell. But instead I said: ‘You know, I was watching The Thirty Nine Steps again the other night and I have to say I think Alfred Hitchcock takes some beating’. He shook me by the hand, offering a compliment on how one of the best of filmmakers was British. By much less have great friendships been born!