Couple reunited with lost wedding film after 57 years

A husband and wife in Australia have been reunited with the long lost footage of their wedding in Scotland after it was found by chance 57 years later.

Aileen and Bill Turnbull got married in Aberdeen in 1967 and later emigrated – but without the film.

The footage was found when an old cine film was transferred onto DVD for a man in Aberdeen. He posted an image from it on social media, and the couple in Brisbane later recognised themselves.

After watching the film again – which she had only seen once before – Mrs Turnbull told BBC Scotland News it was an “absolutely amazing” feeling.

The couple married at Mastrick Church in Aberdeen in August 1967.

They were filmed leaving the church on equipment borrowed from a work colleague.

They then borrowed a projector to watch it but returned it without realising the film was still with it, and were unable to work out where it had gone.

They emigrated to Australia in 1981, where they are now grandparents, both aged 77.

Fast forward to April this year, and back in Aberdeen Terry Cheyne was getting old cine footage he had filmed transferred onto DVD.

When he watched it back there was some wedding footage he knew nothing about.

Mr Cheyne posted a still image, taken from the recording of the happy couple, on a Facebook page but it was almost six months before a shocked Mrs Turnbull stumbled across the picture.

“It was absolutely amazing, I couldn’t believe it,” Mrs Turnbull told BBC Scotland News.

“I was looking through Facebook, and up came this wedding photograph. My husband was sitting here, I turned to him and I said ‘there’s our wedding photograph’.

“I messaged Terry and it just grew from there. His uncle was the guy we’d borrowed the projector from to see the film after the wedding, he worked with my husband.

“We gave back the projector, and unbeknown to us that film was still in the projector. We’ve only found that out now.

“We looked at it once, after that we couldn’t find it and didn’t know what happened to it. It must have got mixed up with something and it’s only surfaced now. Then Terry decided to try and trace this couple.”

Mr Cheyne was able to send them a link so they could watch the footage – and it brought back some special memories.

“It just seems strange for me to see my mother and my father, not just in a photograph but there actually moving and walking,” Mrs Turnbull explained.

“And my husband, he saw his grandmother and his grandfather, who was 100 when he died.

“I watched it again today, I could still recognise everybody.

“To look back and see these people was just absolutely amazing – I still can’t believe it really.

“I was just saying to my neighbours, we’ve got our wedding album, and the majority of people in that have passed away. So seeing the film was just surreal. A few of them are still with us.”

She said getting part of their wedding filmed – the footage lasts under three minutes – was “probably very unusual” at the time.

“Terry sent me the link so we could see it here, it was just so surreal.”

Mr Cheyne said he used to be in the Royal Navy and had lots of reels of his own cine footage.

“When I came home I gave it to my uncle, he kept them safe for me,” he said.

“One day he decided he was moving house so I recovered my films. I kept them in my loft for a long time. And then I decided I would transfer them onto DVD, because I didn’t have a projector.

“The first film that was on the DVD was a mysterious unknown film to me. It was clearly a wedding, in Mastrick Church. I watched it many times, I didn’t know anybody.”

He posted a picture on a Facebook page, but it was when someone shared it on another page that Mrs Turnbull spotted it.

“I waited almost six months, and then Aileen said ‘that’s us’,” he said.

“When she told me she had only even seen it once in 57 years it was really a joyful moment.”

He hopes to actually meet the couple if they are able to make it over to Aberdeen on holiday.

“I’ve just been glad to help Aileen and Bill,” Mr Cheyne said. “They are delighted 57 years later. A very happy ending.”