Terry (baby), and Mary (far right) with Shirley and Michael (view video)

Mary Laws (nee Moody) was looking for an extra Christmas present for her husband Keith, and remembering that he was interested in war-related things she bought him a video entitled "Hull At War". Watching it, she saw a clip of her own family when she was a child. "It was really emotional for me, and I started crying". She rang her brother Terry straight away to tell him the amazing news.

Mary and her brother Terry play the sequence featuring her family listening to Winston Churchill's victory speech for reporter Ken Cooper : "I just couldn't believe that I was actually looking at ourselves on the screen". Her sister Shirley had a bow ribbon in her hair and a polka-dot dress, and Michael had a little short-sleeved shirt, and she herself is wearing a sailor suit. Terry is excited and interested to finally see the footage, having been aware of its existence without ever having seen it.

Mary vaguely remembers people celebrating the end of the war, and dancing in the local park. Terry had not seen pictures of his mother at the age she is in the video, and agrees that she looks rather beautiful. Though both Mary and Terry have old black and white photos of their parents, it's altogether a different and more special thing to see moving pictures of them. "That was the biggest upset, to see ourselves actually moving, especially me mam and Shirley, with them being passed away that was more emotional than anything".

The video has played its part in re-establishing and healing an old family misunderstanding. Mary had located her brother Michael, with whom she had had lost touch, about two years ago, through a private investigator. She had not seen him for almost 40 years. He's now seen the video and can indeed remember it being filmed at the time.

Mary's father had arranged for the children to go to their aunt's in Castleford during the Blitz, and the same night they went their house was completely demolished. The date the house was bombed - August 20th - has proven to be an unlucky one for the family. Shirley also died on August 20th, aged only 21, and Terry had an accident that paralysed him on the same date. These days they tend to keep a low profile on that date!

Click here to see the video sequence that made Mary so emotional.