The Wellpark Story - link to film

[Jo]

Hi all,
Here is a link for you to be able to watch the film I made about The Wellpark 2 years ago. I know lots of you have been asking how to see it, so finally here is a link. You can download it and save it on your computer or save it on a dvd. It will stay up on this link for a week, then it's going to come down. Please keep it for personal viewing only - for friends and family.
www.westdigital.co.uk/Jo_Wall_Film.wmv
Copy and paste above link into your address bar.

Hope you enjoy it!
P.S. I have found some archive footage from the BBC news of the British comedian Frankie Howard coming to visit the children at Kensington...it's so funny. I will ask them if I can get permission for you to be able to see it. Do any of the adults remember this happening? I suppose no one would know who he was at the time...

Best wishes, Jo

[Carmel Fenton]

Hi Jo
Is this the one I already have ? or is this with some added things ? Also any ideas when the London based Inside Out will be happening ?
Carmel

[Jo]

Hi Carmel,
No this is the first one that you've seen already.
Am editing the BBC one next week then, all being well and fingers crossed, the 10-minute story should air on 'Inside Out' on BBC1 at 7.30pm on Oct 1st. Only people living in the London area will be able to receive it but they do tend to put all their programmes on their website, so then anyone catch watch it. I'll keep an eye out, then post the link to this website.
The tapes from the reunion are very good - can't wait to edit them down! Good cameraman.
Jo

[Mike Newton]

Hi Jo,
It's almost two years since I last watched your film. Having just viewed it again I was struck with how effective your film was at telling the story, and how you managed to achieve it with such limited resources and information.
Good job, as they say!
Mike

[Jo]

Mike,
You are too kind...but thank heavens for the fantastic photos you took on the Wellpark....it would have not worked half as well without them.
Jo

[Mike Newton]

Well, actually, if you look back two years, it was you that sparked the whole thing off. I think the story of how you first heard of Wellpark from Howie is a story in itself. Perhaps modesty has prevented you from telling anyone on this site about it!

As I understand it you were working with Howie. You needed to make a short film for your University course. You were looking for an idea for a film, when one day you just happened to say to Howie, 'How did you come to be in the UK?' Well, he told you he was a Vietnamese refugee. When he was a young boy he escaped from Vietnam with his parents, taking to the sea in a decrepid wooden boat. They were rescued by a ship called Wellpark. Of course he told the story in more detail, and something in his words got Jo thinking. Could this be the story she was looking for?

The rest is history as they say. She decided Howie's story would be the basis for her film, and off she went to do her research. When she approached Wellpark’s owners, the Denholm Ship Company, they put up a ‘notice’ on shipsnostalgia, a website forum for merchant seamen to link up with old colleagues, swap stories and memories. It didn’t take long before Andy Dryburgh spotted the entry and replied. And only a day or so later, having completely chanced upon the newspaper tribute to Andrew Griffin, I also found the shipsnostalgia site for the first time.

When Hector Connell asked me 30 years ago to take as many photos as I could of the event, I wasn't really up to the task. I'm almost embarrassed now at the quality of my photography, but poor as it was, I suppose I should concede that with the passage of time the pictures have become priceless. Naturally I was glad that after 28 years stuffed in a box they might have some use for Jo’s film. Having found the shipsnostalgia site I thought I might as well write up the story and post the photos, to save them on the internet, before they rotted in my attic. Over the coming months a few emails came out of the ether, from Vietnamese around the world who had been on Wellpark. Whether the photos sparked the idea for a reunion I don’t know, but I do know it was Jo Wall who started the process!!!

[Chi Pham]

You are right Mike. It was Jo who started the process by making the movie "the Wellpark story in 06. But equally important it was you posted all the pictures on Shipsnostalgia site. In looking at the pictures and your many stories on the site brought back lot of memories sparked the idea of the small gathering reunion for us locally here in April 07 at my house. Later lead me to work on the 30 year reunion and create the reunion web site.

March 07 when I first came across the article "Farewell to quiet hero of the sea" published Friday 4th Aug 2006 about the passing of Andrew Griffin, article about Jo's movie won an award at the Imperial War Museum, the link to her movie (through one of Jo's email to [e-mail] sent on Wednesday, March 14, 2007) and Christopher Long's site http://www.christopherlong.co.uk/oth/vietnam.html via email of Vinh Le who lives in Anaheim, CA who got all these info via email from Thoai Tran.

Earlier in the month Vinh ran into Thoai Tran on the internet. We then found out Thoai lives near me in CA. He moved from London and resided in Irvine 10 years ago. Thoai got the info via email from his younger brother Paul Tran who still lives in London.

Then few weeks later Anh Chi in the UK came across the shipsnostalgia site and emailed to her cousin Hanh in the US. Hanh passed the email around and the rest is history.

Thanks Jo and Mike for spending your time working on bringing back the memories of the rescue 30 years ago, for indirectly helping getting us the boat people from MT 151 together, for creating all these beautiful new memories from the reunion recently, for helping us renew our friendship with many of our boat people and for the beginning of new friendship with you all.

[Hieu Tran]

Hi Joe,

Good to hear from you!

This was a good documentation. However, I like to add that most South Vietnamese people, not just the ethnic Chinese, also faced the same persecution and discrimination from the Vietnamese Communist regime. Basically, after many years of war resulting in the lost of millions of lives on both sides, the government did not trust the South Vietnamese people in general. As for my family, we were also forced to "donate" all of our property to the State and had to leave for the country side.

Hieu

[Jo]

Hi Hieu!
I hope you are well.
Yes when I made the film 2 years ago I didn't know that because I was interviewing mainly Chinese/Vietnamese people, that I met through my colleague, and was recording their personal story. And we decided not to go too much into the politics of the time.
I had never studied the history of the region so I really knew absolutely nothing to start with. Basically I have been learning as I went along.
The films I am making now include more people in the story, because I had access to a wide range of people in the States.
Kind regards, Jo

[Hieu Tran]

Thank you, Joe, for your great work, effort, and dedication!!!

You are truly leaving a legacy, where I am sure the Wellpark family and the Vietnamese Boat people will treasure your work for generations to come.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help.

Warm regards,

Hieu

[Mike Newton]

Hi Hieu,

At my level on Wellpark we did not understand we had a mix of South Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese on board. In the early days, if I could get one man to understand my instructions I could not understand why he could not tell another man what I wanted him to do! This reunion process has given me the answers to so many questions I had for so long. For instance I believed you started out on three boats. Two sank, and the survivors climbed on the remaining one. It took me 30 years to appreciate how desperate your situation had been, and the motives behind why you left Vietnam. I had no idea so many families were split. Even now Jo is finding 'new' news clips of the event. It's great to be able to put all the bits of the jigsaw together.
Mike

[pat griffin]

I am also enjoying hearing new information, the time was so short to chat to people and hear their stories, but all were fascinating. New colours come out of the rescue 'painting' and it gives me new eyes to see it.

Pat

[Carmel Fenton]

I just wanted to say that the more stories I hear the more amazing it becomes. I struggle with the grief of losing my Dad, and I think those at the reunion could see just what he meant to me and going to LA felt like a bit of a journey for him. I thought I knew the Wellpark story.... Dad talked about it enough. However, I was not prepared to hear just so many personal stories and I really wished I could have spent more time just talking to everyone I barely made it past our table.

I honestly thought that everyone invovled would have had a similar story to tell but with every person there is a different story whether it is ..........how they got to be on the boat, who they left behind, who went ahead of them, how they were rescued, who rescued them, who they were with when they were rescued.... if they were with anyone at all, then their experience on the Wellpark, were they having fun, doing chores, cooking, then when you got to Kensington did you stay, did you move on quickly.

I cannot help but feel humbled to have been in your presence... true survivors and what I found even more so was the level of positivity and this idea of paying the gratitude forward by being kind and helpful to others. I really hope as many stories and human tales are captured by the book and new DVD. Neither will capture everything as memories fade but even the 1% that I have already experienced and heard is truly inspiring.