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Kathleen Molyneux Mander
Kathleen Molyneux Mander (nee. Neilson-Baxter) (Kay Mander) (29th September 1915 - 2013) was a documentary film-maker. She was born at 194 Marlborough Avenue, Hull, the only child of Thomas Hope Mander (accountant and bookkeeper) and Mable Fanny (nee Jacob).

Early Life and Education
She pent her childhood, when not boarding at Queenwood Ladies' College in Eastbourne, in France and Germany due to her father's work for an American radiator company National Radiators taking him to Europe. It was in Paris she showed an interest in photography.

She moved to Berlin to join her parents after failing an Oxford Scholarship exam. She considered several professions including teaching, journalism and acting, even joining an ex-pat amatuer dramatics club.

Early Career
In 1935 she worked as a secretary at Joseph Goebbels's International Film Congress. There she met several delegates of the British feature film industry who encouraged her to look for eployment in the British film industry, she contacted them for a job when she returned to Britain.

Her first job in the film industry was as an interpreter for German cameraman Hans Schneeberger. Schneeberger was in London working on the aviation docudrama Conquest of the Air (1936) for producer Alexander Korda, of London Films. She then spent several years working in traditionally "female" departments such as publicity, budget and production before moving into continuity.

In 1940 she was offered a job at Shell Film Unit making instructional films by producer Arthur Elton. Her debut film as a director was How to File (1941), intended as a training tool for the aircraft construction industry. Mander was praised for her inovative use of tracking shots following the movement of the file. Mander directed four more instructional films for Shell Film Unit, two for the recently restructure Fire Service and another for the Ministry of Home Security. These films were highly complex and technical and made for specialised audiences but were characterised by clarity, simplicity and skilful technical exposition.

Politics
During the 1930s she joined the Communist Party and attended Left Book Club meetings. Her political leanings would later infiltrate her filmmaking. In 1937 she was the first woman to join the film industry's union, the Association of Cinematographic Technicians (ACT) (now BECTU). She had a column in the ACT journal, The Cine-Technician, until the 1950s, where she wrote union issues such as the need for equal pay and post-war job security. After the end of WW2 her membership of the Communist party made it more difficult for her to find work.