A University Centre Weston (UCW) student has made a moving documentary about his grandparents meeting on June 6th 1944.
Scott Morgan’s film, called ‘The D-Day We Met’, tells the story of Raymond and Edie Wheeler meeting on the historic day and the beginning of their relationship during the final days of World War 2.
The pair, who were both in their early twenties at the time, hit it off straight away after a chance meeting outside a shop in Horfield, and arranged to go dancing at St. Gregory The Great Church the next day.
The film sees Raymond, who is originally from Essex, discussing how they continued their relationship despite him being deployed in France to build and maintain Allied airfields and guard prisoners of war for the RAF in the aftermath of D-Day.
Raymond, aged 96, and Edie, 97, spent the majority of their married life in Bristol and have four children, and now live in a care home in Worle.
Scott, who studies the degree in Film and Media Arts Production at UCW, was originally planning to make a film about Raymond’s work during the war, which led to him being in Germany on VE Day and on a ship in the Mediterranean on his way to the Far East on VJ Day.
He switched the focus when his grandfather started telling him about his grandparents’ courtship.
The 45-year-old said: “I knew my grandfather was involved in D-Day and I wanted to find out more about it, but it was only when I was doing the research for the film that he said ‘oh, that was the day that I met your nan’.
“I grew up in the area of the Bristol where they met and I felt that his personal story of his time in the War and meeting my nan could mean a lot to other people too.”
Scott had his own photography studio in Torquay before enrolling at UCW, and also runs the successful Explorer Buddies YouTube channel with his wife Ellie, who studies Lens-based Media at UCW.
He added: “I’ve enjoyed my whole experience of studying at UCW and, as a mature student who has been away from education, the big thing for me has been getting all the additional learning support I need.”
Watch ‘The D-Day We Met’ on the UCWeston YouTube channel.
