The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.
- Genre: Drama
- Studio: BFI
- Keyword: scotland, coming of age, autobiographical, child neglect, animal cruelty, 1940s
- Cast: Stephen Archibald, Hughie Restorick, Jean Taylor Smith, Karl Fieseler, Bernard McKenna, Paul Kermack