A fascinating chapter in the island’s wartime history has been told in a new film, released this week.

’Mooragh: Beyond the Barbed Wire’ is a series of films created around the life and music of the composer Peter Gellhorn, a German-born composer and conductor who lived and worked in England until the outbreak of war.

The films are part of ’Singing a Song in a Foreign Landâ??,’ a project dedicated to the contribution of musicians who fled from Nazi Germany to musical life in Britain.

Gellhorn was arrested as an ’enemy alien’ in 1939 and found himself kept behind barbed wire in the Mooragh Internment camp, in one of the tall guest houses that still stand on Mooragh promenade today.

During his time there, he immersed himself into the community, playing the organ in a local church, directing ensembles and choirs, performing several recitals and also composing several pieces of music, including a piece entitled ’Mooragh’, where he put the words of a poem, written by a fellow internee, to music.

He remained interned until 1941, when an intervention by the English composer Vaughn Williams led to his release.

He stayed in England and conducted operas at Glyndebourne and Convent Garden and became the musical director for the BBC Singers. He died in 2004.

The film sees Gellhorn’s music played by the Alke String Quartet in both the Ramsey Town Hall and in an apartment in one of the former houses of the Internment camp, along with an interview with his daughter, Barbara Gellhorn, who came to the island in 2017, who said: ’The thing I remember most clearly is him talking about looking up at the hill and not being able to go thereâ?¦ hearing the music written here is really movingâ?¦ It felt like he was here’.

The films were produced by Culture Vannin and the films can been seen at culturevannin.im