“OF all the films obtaining awards, this remains most in the memory.

“The church, decorated with Picasso murals where the scientist-priest officiates and the man seeks guidance, the horrifying moment when the man, after an injection, produces a glass eye from his lips while the priest, suddenly one-eyed, watches his agony; the girl, with aloof elegance in evening dress behind the monster web.”

As descriptions of amateur films go, the one which appeared in the Advertiser one March Monday in 1951 was fairly startling.

The work, called Time Flower, had just been awarded the accolade of most outstanding film entered by an individual member in the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers’ annual awards.

Director Christopher Simpson, who lived in Marlborough Road, Swindon, was presented with a bronze trophy in the shape of a projector.

He was an acclaimed member of Swindon Film Unit, the filmmakers’ society whose surviving legacy includes a number of fascinating documentary sequences.

Our story quoted the judging panel’s words of praise for Time Flower.

We added: “Hailed as one of the most refreshing films in the competition, Time Flower was shot in six weeks last summer; the interiors in a Swindon house, the exteriors at the old brickyard site south of Groundwell Road, and at Silbury Hill, Avebury.”

How did such a surreal piece of celluloid come into being in the heart of a very down-to-earth railway town?

A later paragraph in the story offers clues.

“Script was written by Mr Desmond Morris, artist and zoology student, of Victoria Road, Swindon, and Mr Paul Weir, inspector at an aircraft factory, of The Paddocks, Wroughton.

“Mr Morris and Mr Weir acted in the film, with Mr Morris’s fiancée 20-year-old Miss Ramona Baulch, who lives at Lainey’s Close, Marlborough and is a history student at Oxford.

“The team was completed by Mrs Simpson, who saw to the film’s continuity.”

As many Rewind readers will be aware, Desmond Morris is one of Swindon’s most famous sons thanks to decades of TV work and dozens of books including The Naked Ape and Manwatching.

Fewer people know that he is also a respected artist with a lifelong interest in surrealism.

He and Ramona celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2012.

We know much less about Time Flower director Mr Simpson. His earlier works, according to our story, included a stop-motion piece called Table Top Ballet, in which china figures and costumed matchsticks were painstakingly made to dance through 7,500 frames.

His next project, he told us, would be a farce, ideally using the same team.

Can any Rewind readers shed more light on the stories of these films? Do copies survive?