Whistle Down the Wind DVD Promo The Daily Telegraph Alan Bates Bernard Lee

When a young girl finds an injured man hiding in her father's barn, she asks who he is. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaims, startled by the girl and falls into an exhausted stupor. His striking resemblance to a picture postcard of Jesus, confirms to her and her brother and sister, that it is really Him. An angelic Alan Bates enigmatically plays the Man, in fact an escaped prisoner, and Hayley Mills plays the delightful eldest child Kathy. Her little brother and sister are played by Diane Holgate and a particularly hard-done-by but loveable and cheeky scamp Alan Barnes, who declares over breakfast that he's eaten "198 eggs since last Easter." But the word spreads about "a certain person" amongst the children of the Lancashire village and secret parcels of food and gifts are brought to nourish and reassure Him. A spellbound congregation inevitably appears at the gate. The grown-ups ultimately find out and the terrible confusion the children feel when the Man is brought out by the police is touchingly palpable. This enchanting allegory, written by Mills' mother Mary Hayley Bell, is charming and amusing enough to avoid being sentimental, and has deservedly become a classic.