News on Screen

Helen Wiggins was the daughter of Jack Wiggins [qv], and entered the film industry in 1920, working in the laboratories and cutting rooms. She specialised in newsreel, working as chief film editor on the Universal Talking News and Point of View. In September 1937 it was announced that Jack Wiggins would manage the processing of a new colour newsreel called the National News, and that ‘his daughter, Miss Nellie Wiggins, will be in charge of the negative cutting.' The first issues of the National News appeared in October 1937, but production was almost immediately suspended. Wiggins was afterwards chief film editor of the Pathe News - apparently from 1940, and was one the Pathe staff interviewed for ‘ELECTION PRELUDE’ in Pathe News No.45/52 of June 1945 - the card describing it coyly as ‘various people voicing their opinions.' Wiggins apparently resigned from Pathe in 1948 to go freelance, and later established Helen Wiggins Films Limited, which specialised in television films and advertising.

Sources

Cine-Technician, October-November 1937, p.146, ‘Newsreel’: P. Noble (ed) ‘British Film and Television Year Book 1956/57’ (London, 1956), p.316.