It is exactly 100 years since Walt Disney founded his famous film studio, which has made some of the world’s best-loved movies. What’s less well known is the story of the founder’s links to a tiny English village.
A shooting star flies around Sleeping Beauty’s castle to the soaring strings of When You Wish Upon a Star, as multi-coloured fireworks explode and a perfect arc of light is formed in the sky before disappearing.
That is the title sequence at the start of every Disney movie since 2006 – meaning that whether it is the live action Little Mermaid or the latest animated release Elemental, a tribute has just been paid to a Lincolnshire village with a population of 242.
To find out how and why, I arranged to meet Disney historian Sebastien Durand at St Peter’s Church in Norton Disney, Lincolnshire, a building that dates back to the 11th Century.
“This is the oldest place in England where you can find a trace of Disney, of Walt Disney’s history and his family tree and even his coat of arms,” the French Disney expert explains, while gazing up at Norman pillars and arches.
This is also a church that Walt Disney himself visited on 7 July 1949.
By that stage of his career, the company that Walt founded with his brother Roy had just celebrated its 25th anniversary. Walt had already won 12 Oscars for films including Fantasia and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
That summer, he was in the UK supervising the filming of a live action Treasure Island when his daughters, Diane and Sharon, convinced him and his wife Lillian to spend a few days in Scotland. He agreed, but only if they could make a detour on the way.
“He heard there was a village named after Disney,” says Durand. “He was intrigued as he only knew that his great-grandfather was Irish. He didn’t know his history earlier than that.”
Accompanied by a photographer and with a cine camera to make a home movie, the Disneys descended on the tiny village. The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco has allowed the BBC to show that rare footage as part of Disney’s 100th anniversary celebrations.
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The family can be seen posing for photos by Norton Disney signs, walking down the main road, and inspecting gravestones.
“He came with a convoy of cars and they stopped here to spend an afternoon in Norton Disney,” says Durand.
“He was from a rural village in America. He grew up in Marceline, Missouri – so when he was here, he met with stockmen and could discuss with them about raising pigs, because that’s what he did as a child. He connected with the people here and connected with his own history here.”
It was in St Peter’s Church that Walt Disney made his most significant discovery.
The minister at the time, Rev RK Roper, explained to the animator how the De Isignys had come over from France to England with William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and had settled in the area.
Over centuries, the name had changed to d’Isigny, then D’Iseny, eventually becoming Disney around the 13th or 14th Centuries.
Walt also saw the rather grand 14th Century tomb of Sir William d’Isney on which there was the family crest, with three lions facing left, the symbol of Normandy.
It clearly made an impression.
In 1965, for the 10th anniversary of the Disneyland theme park in California, Walt decided he wanted to add a coat of arms to Sleeping Beauty’s castle. He was asked if there was a Disney crest.
“He said, ‘Yes, I remember I saw it in Norton Disney in 1949 when I was in England filming Treasure Island. I went to that little town and saw the coat of arms,'” Durand explains.
“So they took photographs of it and they reproduced it on the castle in Disney, California, and since then it is on every Disney castle in all Disney parks. It even appears now at the beginning of every Disney movie.”
So, since 2006 at the start of every Disney film, three lions can be seen flying on the flag at the top of Sleeping Beauty’s castle – a tribute to Norton Disney.
Darts with Disney
There is still one resident who remembers the day Walt Disney visited.
Appropriately, Hilda Kinnersley lives on Disney Court. She is 94 but was 20 and sitting in the St Vincent Arms pub (now called the Green Man) when her younger brother Jim arrived with the American visitors.
“I thought who’s that he’s bringing in?” remembers Hilda.
“And then I thought, he’s not a bad looking man. They all come in with his daughters. And they were chatty, and they played a game of darts, because we were already playing darts when Walt came in.”
London Illustrated magazine dedicated two pages to the visit, saying: “The man who has invaded the world’s screens hopes to prove he is descended from a Norman invader of 1066.”
What proof is there that Walt Disney really is related to the Disneys of Norton Disney?
“You can never be totally sure,” Durand says, “because nobody can trace a direct history over 1,000 years except if he is from a royal family.
“We know that the Disney name began in France, continued in England and went to Ireland and then to America, so obviously all people who share that name Disney, including Walt Disney, share that same history.
“The name comes from here. The exact possibility that Walt Disney is related to that is, I would say, 99%.”
Disneyland is 600 years old
One other rather interesting historical Disney link, which is kept in the Lincolnshire Archives, can be seen in a charter signed in 1386. It shows that the name of the estate of the Disney family was Disnayland, albeit with an A.
Durand cannot hide his glee. “So the first appearance of the name Disneyland is not in California at the park or at Disneyland Paris, but here in Lincolnshire more than 600 years ago.”
When Walt visited in 1949, he presented the village with three prints of Disney characters, which he kept on him at all times in case of autograph hunters.
For the company’s 100th anniversary, rather more thought has gone into a gift from Disney to the village.
Durand handed over a specially commissioned picture of Mickey and Minnie Mouse walking through Norton Disney, drawn by Disney illustrator Kim Raymond.
Thanks to a visit in 1949, the person who holds the record for winning the most Oscars ever and a tiny Lincolnshire village will forever be linked – a fairy tale worthy of Disney himself.
