CHRIS WINDOWS (1919-1987)

CHRISTOPHER Windows was born in Southampton and grew up in Wimbledon.

He joined the Gaumont British film studios in 1935 at Lime Grove as an apprentice and later joined Gainsborough Studios.

He served in the Second World War in the Army Film and Photographic Unit spending most of it in North Africa.

He served first as a sergeant, then as an officer.

Some of the footage he shot there was seen in the documentary Desert Victory.

He filmed many famous people including King George of the Hellenes, Roosevelt, Churchill, Montgomery, Alexander and Chiang Kai Chek but not Hitler and Chamberlain.

Afterwards he joined Denis Kendall at the Grantham Guardian newspaper, launched in 1946, on London Road.

When that closed he set up as a freelance photographer with studios at 74 High Street, moving to Vine Street in 1950 and finally to Castlegate in 1979 where he continued his profession as a photographer and film maker.

In 1948 he covered the visit of King George V, the Queen and Princess Margaret at Cranwell and in 1963 the visit of the Queen Mother to mark the town’s quincentenary celebrations.

Some of the DVD Grantham Looks Back is his work and many of the old photos in the “Bygone Grantham” series are from the 1/4 million negatives he accumulated in his 50 years of work.

His wife, Rita Windows, was a lecturer at Grantham College.

He was found dead in his car near his home in Rectory Lane, Barrowby.