Patrick Wyand ("Pat")

Pat Wyand was Paul Wyand’s [qv] younger brother, who worked in the drawing office at Vickers - where his father was Chief Draughtsman - before joining Movietone as a sound engineer in March 1934. Wyand was one of the first soundmen out on the road with the Fox Aeolight optical sound-recording system. As Wyand later recalled, he had only a short training, and did his first sound recordings after only three weeks: ‘I then worked with the road sound units, usually with a regular cameraman, making up a crew of two, referred to later by the ACT as ‘a man and a dog.'' However, in July 1937 Wyand was working as sound engineer recording ‘NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS AT SCARBOROUGH’ for British Movietone News 423A, when, as he noted, ‘I was recalled...and with no dubbing experience whatever was thrown in at the deep end, given one day’s briefing on the art of dubbing, one day dubbing under supervision and then took over the dubbing of the newsreel while the Chief of Sound, Pat Sunderland [qv], was on holiday’: ‘From then on, I was ‘stand-in’ dubbing mixer and recordist.' Pat Wyand featured with Paul Wyand and Dick Harris [qv] in a comic item ‘FOUR WAR GUYS’ in British Movietone News No.544 of November 1939.

In January 1941 he worked as sound engineer for Paul Wyand on ‘QUICK TRANSPORT FOR MODERN GUNS’ in British Movietone News No.606, and in April 1941 they again worked together on ‘WELL DONE, AIRCRAFT FACTORY WORKERS’ for No.618. In September 1941 Wyand was called up into the Royal Navy, but, as he recalled, this ‘caused a bit of a flap at Movietone as I was the only road engineer left, the others being mainly engaged on ASDIC work for the Navy’: ‘My call up was quickly cancelled, no doubt due to the influence of the Ministry of Information.' Paul Wyand later recalled that ‘I worked on a number of stories with my brother, Pat, until I went abroad [1943], when the firm thought it would be unfair to send brothers to the same danger spot.' Pat Wyand continued to work on domestic stories, and in May 1944 he worked with cameraman Jack Ramsden [qv] to film ‘FIRST OF THE HALF-A-MILLION’ for British Movietone News No.779. In 1946, according to Wyand, he ‘was officially transferred ‘inside’.' Pat Wyand featured in a ‘gag shot’ on petrol rationing in ‘BASIC BACK WITH A ‘BUT’,' in British Movietone News No.984 of April 1948. In May 1954 Wyand was in charge of sound dubbing on his brother’s Cinemascope film of the Royal Tour of the Commonwealth, released as ‘The Flight of the White Heron.' He became chief of sound at Movietone in February 1967, and in 1971 was appointed assistant manager, a post he held until his retirement in 1974.

Sources

BUFVC, British Paramount News files, Number 1030 (13/1/1941), Number 1054 (7/4/1941), Number 1376 (Ramsden and Wyand’s rota dopesheet, 3/5/1944): P. Wyand ‘Useless if Delayed’ (London, 1959), p.59: Pat Wyand ‘British Newsreel Companies’ Staff’ in J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels: Vol.II’ (1988), p.36.