Brian Desmond Hurst

Brian Desmond Hurst (12 February 1895 – 26 September 1986) was a Belfast-born film director. With over thirty films in his filmography, Hurst was hailed as Northern Ireland's best film director by BBC film critic Mike Catto. He is perhaps best known for the 1951 A Christmas Carol adaptation Scrooge. Early life Hurst was born at 23 Ribble Street, Belfast, into a working-class family. He attended the New Road School, a public elementary school in East Belfast. Hurst's father, Robert senior, and brother, Robert junior, were iron-workers in the Harland and Wolff shipyard. In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Hurst enlisted as a private in the British Army. He saw service with the 6th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles at the battle of Chunuk Bair in Gallipoli, the Balkans and the Middle East. At Chunuk Bair his regiment were "battle virgins when they were thrown into the Turkish machine gun fire for the first time on 10 August 1915". "They had set out a few hours before for the Chunuk Bair with twenty officers and over 700 men. Several stragglers and those who had lost their way returned to base in the hours that lay ahead but by the evening of 10 August the Hampshires and the Rifles had been broken in what amounted to a cruel massacre". Hurst was interviewed by Punch magazine in 1969. The article includes Hurst's statement that "I would fight for England against anybody except Ireland" and it continues: "Why for England? 'Because an Englishman is worth twenty foreigners.' Why not against Ireland? 'Because an Irishman is worth fifty Englishmen.'"