A remarkable find: Cyril Mellonius on Pathé News

Welcome to our first post of 2023 and, almost inevitably, it features a ‘find’ by John Ellis.

In November 2019 we published an article by John that featured Cyril Mellonius, you can read it here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/a-sri-lankan-in-the-die-hards-private-cyril-lorenz-mellonius-a-somme-veteran-of-the-middlesex-regiment/

Now he has stumbled across some remarkable Pathé News footage on You Tube which shows a group of Ceylonese men (Cyril must surely be among them) marching to enlist in London in January 1916. It is black and white (obviously), silent and grainy (and you have to get past the irritating adverts at the beginning) but it gives us a fascinating glimpse of the men John wrote about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7JHDAuy94M

A good start to the year!