William R Vicker

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Roy Fowler  0:00  
Polarity, yes, yes, okay. The copyright of this recording is listed in the ACTT History Project. We're at gleblands, and the date is the third of August, 1989 and the interview is with Bill Vickers, Bill to start out with, when and where were you born? Hons,

Speaker 1  0:25  
low 1906 23rd of December. 1906

Roy Fowler  0:31  
right? So you're what? 83 this year. 83 this year? Yeah, yes, I'm in very good shape by the look of you, right? So in house, though, did your family, your father, have any connection at all? My father

Speaker 1  0:47  
was a police sergeant, yes, you know. But of course, I think they moved to the West End, where my father was stationed, and then he moved to Hammersmith, and then finished his time up at Chelsea, where I was spent all my boyhood, at Chelsea and

Roy Fowler  1:09  
the Chelsea police station.

Was there anything special or awkward or different about being a policeman's son?

Speaker 1  1:21  
I don't think so. My father, he was apprenticed to glass painting, but he had very, very bad throats, and the doctor advised him to go into the open here. That's why he joined the police.

Roy Fowler  1:38  
So the fact your father was a copper didn't scare off your friends or anything. Coppers were very different people in those days,

Unknown Speaker  1:48  
the real dick respected and

Roy Fowler  1:51  
liked as well. I think that's less less so today, maybe. And were you an only child?

Speaker 1  1:59  
No, there was three sisters and I had a brother. Yes,

Roy Fowler  2:07  
we've got a blue bottle. I don't know if it's going to record or not. You went to school then for in various schools, presumably, as your father moved around at

Speaker 1  2:18  
Hammersmith, and then, like at school at Chelsea, and that's

Roy Fowler  2:24  
which school in Chelsea, well,

Unknown Speaker  2:28  
cooks, cooks, ground school in Church Street, Chelsea,

Roy Fowler  2:37  
what running up from the Kings Road? That's right, running, it's gone now, has it,

Unknown Speaker  2:42  
though, it's still there, big idea. So it's a comprehensive school now, yes,

Roy Fowler  2:47  
yeah, I think we've got to kill that thing. Do you mind? Yes, it's one dead blue bottle. And did you have any special subjects that you enjoyed or were very good at at school, not

Speaker 1  3:04  
really. I, I can't say that. I was a very particularly bright pupil. I left when I was 15.

Roy Fowler  3:16  
So that would be, what? 1918, yes, well, well, I

Speaker 1  3:21  
would say I'd left at 14, but in those days, there was a day continuation school at two days a week, which you had to attend, you know. And so I really finished school at 15. That's when I started my apprenticeship. Like this would be 1922,

Roy Fowler  3:48  
how did your apprenticeship come about? Was that your desire or your I

Speaker 1  3:53  
think my father saw the headmaster, and the headmaster thought I would be better in a trade than in clerical work. So I think was a toss up whether I became apprentice to cabinet making or cinematograph engineering. You know, so. But anyway, it was cinematograph engineering.

Roy Fowler  4:17  
How many openings bill were there in cinematograph engineering in those days, was it a thriving business? Do you remember, I

Speaker 1  4:26  
would, really, wouldn't know much about, you know, but

Roy Fowler  4:29  
presumably, there were quite a few companies, little companies, making equipment. Well, they

Speaker 1  4:35  
would be but, you know, at 15 I had, I had no experience of, well, any other companies at all, but

Roy Fowler  4:44  
speaking from later knowledge, what would you say?

Speaker 1  4:47  
Yes, oh yes, there was firms like Vinton W Vinton and Kingston lines in. That street in Charing Cross Road, small like small units. Yeah, you sort of dabbled in cameras and film printers. Tell us

Roy Fowler  5:12  
about the company that you went to work for. Well, I,

Speaker 1  5:16  
my father had to pay a 30 pound premium for me to become apprenticed which?

Roy Fowler  5:22  
Which was the company? The name of the company, F

Speaker 1  5:25  
brown limited right at long acre in Covent Garden. Yes. So that was from 1922 until 1926

Roy Fowler  5:38  
now, 30 pounds was a considerable amount of money. I would have thought, which did he had he saved it, or did he borrow it? How did he find the 30 pounds,

Speaker 1  5:51  
I should say, without of their savings? Yeah, I really wouldn't know. You know.

Roy Fowler  5:55  
Anyway, it was a at

Speaker 1  5:59  
that time, when I look back, I realize how grateful I should have been, that towards and for this. But I'm afraid when you're young, you're very thoughtless, right?

Roy Fowler  6:12  
That's very true. So tell us about now the company in long acre Browns that you went to work for. What? What? Sort of work did they do?

Speaker 1  6:24  
Well, they manufactured projectors for a company called butchers, who presumably then resold the projectors, arc lamps, scissor, arc lamps, acetylene and lean units with a small mirror on for showing slides.

Roy Fowler  6:50  
Well, two questions, was it only projection equipment that they made?

Speaker 1  6:57  
Well, they did do some government work, which filled in parts for bombs and that I

Roy Fowler  7:10  
see, yes, but in terms of cinematographic, cinematographic equipment, it was, it was projection, rather than studio.

Speaker 1  7:19  
I used to manufacture and make the simplex intermittent Sprockets for the simplex projector. Yes, in those days, this

Roy Fowler  7:28  
was what contract work is

Unknown Speaker  7:33  
cross. Well,

Speaker 1  7:35  
we didn't. I never had anything to do with the manufacture, but they did do make more teas crosses? Yes,

Roy Fowler  7:49  
sorry. You said you have your apprentice papers there. Describe them to us. My first reference. Can you describe them to us, since we're it's only a sound, you know, people can't see them, so if you can explain what they are, well,

Speaker 1  8:14  
well it, it sets out the the number of hours you worked a Week, which was 52 and a half hours a week, half past seven till six o'clock in the week days and on a Saturday, half past seven till one o'clock. And during my first year, I got eight shillings per week. Second year, 12 shillings a week. The third year, 16 shillings a week, and the fourth year, 20 shillings a week.

Roy Fowler  8:50  
Well, your first year, then that money didn't go very far. So your parents really are still keeping you Of course, yeah, yes. Now you started early in the morning. What time did you have to get up?

Speaker 1  9:04  
Well, I lived at Chelsea, I suppose, around about six, I suppose. And you take a bus, you walk. I used to walk from my home at Chelsea to South Kensington tube station. Yes, you know. And then book to Covent Garden on a workman stick it in those days, which was quite cheap.

Roy Fowler  9:27  
Now, the papers, the indentures, say what the company is going to do for you, and what you have to do for the company is that right?

Speaker 1  9:34  
An agreement, yes. And one of the clauses in there that you were not permitted to join a trade union. That's Yes, you know, yes

Unknown Speaker  9:47  
was I believe

Speaker 1  9:49  
F Brown. I was surprised when I was at the Museum of moving images that F Brown had a collection of old. Uh, gold lacquered lentens and all that sort of thing. And I was very surprised and quite proud. You know, when I come across it, you know, to have a link with the past. Absolutely yes,

Roy Fowler  10:16  
that business about trade unions, did that apply only to the apprentices, or did it apply to all the employees, I expect, all the employees. So there was no trade union representation at all at that stage. What sort of company was it? Was it a benign and benevolent company, or were they hard task masters? No, I think it was a one man effort. There was a Mr. Brown. It wasn't Mr. Brown. And was he an inventor, a clever type who invented things, or was he a businessman? I would, I really wouldn't know. Did you have anything to do with him? Not really. No

Speaker 1  10:56  
from signing your papers in His presence. Who

Roy Fowler  11:00  
accepted an apprentice in those days? Who was it made the choice?

Speaker 1  11:06  
Was it the, I think Mr. Brown himself, right? So you were interviewing by with your father, yeah, and you know that decided, well, subject to sign in the papers, we will engage him. Did

Roy Fowler  11:20  
you want to do it? Did you want to go into this particular business? Or was it something that I

Speaker 1  11:26  
didn't really know? You realized that it was a your first job that you were going into.

Roy Fowler  11:34  
It was very different in those days. Then people really were told what they were going to do, rather than saying what I am going to do, is yes, because I think children these days have much more choice, don't they?

Speaker 1  11:50  
Yes. I think that's due to the schooling. You know, yes. What kind of those days it was really the parents, which decided, you know,

Roy Fowler  12:09  
well, tell us about your early days at BROWNS. What you remember of the work that you were doing, working

Speaker 1  12:15  
on a turret lathe and dying long rods with the threads for operating the art lamps, very, very, very tedious. It was all manually

Roy Fowler  12:31  
controlled in those days, yes,

Speaker 1  12:36  
totally different to what now. Well, of course, they don't use this. They still use arc lamps, but not to the extent that they were,

Roy Fowler  12:51  
what did you enjoy? What you would Yes, then you

Speaker 1  12:57  
you progress to working on a milling machine part of your training, and then working on a lathe. And I think I excelled more on lathe work than milling work and that type of work. And then you had a spill where you worked on a hobby machine for hobbing the teeth on the sprockets, you know. But of course, the machine was all set up for you. You didn't set it up yourself.

Roy Fowler  13:36  
Were you, in effect, learning, or you actually make you were learning and also, but you were making things at the same time, cheap labor, but you were a cheap labor, right? And how long did this go on for Bill? But how long did this go on for four years you served your apprenticeship until 1926 Yes. Okay, yes. Then what? Well,

Speaker 1  14:03  
prior to my finishing my time, I just cannot remember how I become to get to Pathy freers In ward or street for the life of me. How, whether I answer an advertisement in a paper I must have done, must have done, or it may have been done through a paper exchange, you know, yes, but that's anyway. That's where.

Roy Fowler  14:37  
Well, let me ask you, did you have to leave browns? Right? No. I mean, what was

Speaker 1  14:43  
it? I wasn't they wasn't prepared to be to pay very much. I see what, what they were already paying.

Roy Fowler  14:52  
But once your term of apprenticeship was over, you had the right to leave. Yes, yes. Okay, that's a good man.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
As a recognized skilled man, yes,

Speaker 1  15:03  
and you know, like and I joined Pathy freers in Ward street, and they had a maintenance department for looking after all their developing machines. And they were manufacturing themselves developing machines for bought for their particular building, which was a peculiar shape, and I used them, went there as a turner, and it was more or less all on every night, you know, to all the sprockets were made of every night with, with, because it was still teeth in between. It was

Roy Fowler  15:49  
non corrosive, yes. Path A, then was a company that had a hand in almost everything French, big or yes, very very right. Even over here,

Speaker 1  16:01  
they were French, yes, very, very nice people, right? Yes, you mean the

Roy Fowler  16:06  
people who worked for them, as well as management

Speaker 1  16:09  
well. Some of the management were English, but the heads were definitely French, right? Okay, yes. Do

Roy Fowler  16:17  
you remember which number ward or street?

Speaker 1  16:19  
I think it was 84 uh, not the main Pathy building. I think that was 100 and something. Yeah, that the new building, 84 is going down ward street towards Oxford streets on the right hand side.

Roy Fowler  16:37  
That's right, yes, and the main building was on the left, wasn't it going up towards Oxford Street? Well, a little above there. Yeah, I don't know what it is. Now,

Speaker 1  16:48  
they had the top floor, you know, as like with lay, a couple of lays and a milling machine, and so

Roy Fowler  16:57  
you were essentially working with lab equipment, laboratory equipment, yes, right, yes. And would continue then from there, what? How did your career develop?

Speaker 1  17:13  
Well, I think I'm very, sort of hazy on the length of time

Unknown Speaker  17:22  
after I think 60 years ago,

Speaker 1  17:23  
after two or three years, I believe it was that they amalgamated with first national, it was called first national papi. And of course, even in those days when they amalgamated, they started getting rid of staff. And as I was like, he came to the maintenance department, so they had to lose a person. So as I was there, the last person in, I was the first person out. But they were very, very, very good. I was very, very happy there. And very nice, nice people to work for.

Roy Fowler  18:05  
Was this, the fact they combined? Was that a product of the Depression? It probably was, wasn't it?

Speaker 1  18:15  
I don't really know. I think it was just one of those things where the Americans perhaps wanted a foothold over here. Well,

Roy Fowler  18:23  
if this was what the early 30s was, it would it have been the early 30s?

Unknown Speaker  18:26  
Well, would have been after 1926

Roy Fowler  18:33  
Ah, but how soon after? How? You don't remember how long you stayed at party?

Speaker 1  18:37  
Well, roughly, I believe it was about three years so

Roy Fowler  18:42  
that will be 29 it could have been the beginning of the depression, the Wall Street crash, and that led to all sorts of problems. For question is, well,

Speaker 1  18:53  
the real depression of 1926 Of course, I was at the time when the time of the general strike. I was at F Browns limited, yes, I can remember sort of getting a lift on a lorries in those days and half walking to work. You know,

Roy Fowler  19:11  
what did your father do during the the general strike?

Speaker 1  19:15  
Well, because he was on duty all the time, did he

Roy Fowler  19:18  
have any stories about what had happened to him, or things he did not that I can remember, no interesting time.

Speaker 1  19:25  
But of course, my father was involved in the police strike. When the police struck, that was what 1919 wasn't it must have been Yes, right? Yes, because the police at that time were very, very badly paid. And I know my mother has told me how she's had to take things to be pawned to get through the week, you know. But of course, when the police strike after that, things got better.

Roy Fowler  19:57  
Yes, I. Yeah, well, then coming back to your working life. Do you remember what happened after you left? BFI, after they left, you go

Speaker 1  20:10  
as soon as like they were very good and let me have whatever time I wanted to sort myself out for another job, but I did to manette Street and joined Kingston and Lyons so you weren't really out of work at all. Oh, that was good. No, out, no.

Roy Fowler  20:28  
And what did Kingston and Lyons do?

Speaker 1  20:30  
Well, they manufactured, I think my first job. Well, it was at the time British acoustic. They were recording film on separate, separate film, like you had your picture, and British acoustic had the 35 mill film with the full width as a sound track. Yeah. And that fell through very, very quickly, but I was working on the the sound head for recording. Was

Roy Fowler  21:00  
it then an experimental system, or did they actually have double head machines in the cinema? I believe they did at first, but it didn't last. It didn't take long. No, was that before or after or concurrent with RCA and Western Electric? Was it the attempt to beat, well, the American

Speaker 1  21:22  
my memories at Kingston and lying was that we was operating and making a DeForest head. You know, not that I used to make bits and pieces for it and that sort of thing. But,

Roy Fowler  21:40  
well, he was the true pioneer in in optically recorded sound. Was a doctor. Then

Speaker 1  21:45  
there was a Mr. Paul lost. He worked there. I believe he was one of the early inventors of films. But Michael, I never had anything to do with him, because

Roy Fowler  21:59  
the sound. What was it? The same basic system as we use today, a photo electric cell, modulating signals, sound on film, right? Was it variable density, or variable area? Any variable

Speaker 1  22:14  
area? I think yes, but I'm not, not absolutely sure. What

Roy Fowler  22:20  
applications Did it have did was it used to your knowledge in any of the cinemas in London?

Speaker 1  22:29  
Well, it must have been. But quite honestly, although I would have been 2021, at the time. I wasn't very knowledgeable of the film business. You were more a worker, sort of making bits and pieces and but they had cameras, debris cameras, which the album The older men were working on repairing and

Roy Fowler  23:06  
you know, well, British acoustic films is a forgotten company, I think, now. So let's come

Speaker 1  23:13  
into after I left, I'll come back to British acoustic a little later on, because after I worked at Kingston and lines, I wasn't altogether happy there, so I joined W Vinton limited, who operated from urban Dora house in Ward Hall Street, which is still there.

Roy Fowler  23:39  
Yes, you can still see Charles and I think,

Speaker 1  23:44  
yeah, and, and I had a very good about four years with vintons. Now, what they it was after, after I joined them at Ward or street. They had a new factory built at North Circular Road, which I subsequently went to at, you know, to North Circular Road

Speaker 2  24:11  
before we leave, Kingston. Was it Kingston? Arthur Kingston? Was it Kingston? Arthur Kingston, by any chance?

Roy Fowler  24:22  
Was it? Arthur Kingston at Kingston and Lyle, the boss, the gaffer,

Unknown Speaker  24:28  
Arthur Kingston the cameraman. Oh, I see the Kingston for Kingston and

Speaker 1  24:34  
land, yeah, yes, but I never had anything to do with cameras. Yeah, you know, they'll say, don't forget, I was very young and very inexperienced. I really was. Was when I left paths, they said, as a turner, you can go anywhere, but as a fitter, you are no effing. Would at all, you know, which didn't upset me, because that was true. You know, they were quite blunt about it. But I say coming to Winton's, of course, that's where I got all my camera knowledge from.

Roy Fowler  25:18  
Now, vintons specialty was, what a whole range of equipment? Or, well, yes,

Speaker 1  25:26  
modifications in those days to printers, to modify printing for sound on film, from Silent to sound on film, modifications to the debris printers. And of course, then He manufactured gyroscopic tripods for cameras, and then the Model H cameras, which I worked on, and that is where British acoustic come into it. Gomont British, they wanted a 35 mil picture camera with sound. So they chose the Vinton camera for the picture and British acoustic for the sound, correct.

Roy Fowler  26:08  
Okay, let's go through stage by stage. There was a Mr. Vinton was there?

Speaker 1  26:13  
Oh, yes, who was right? Yes. He was the one who actually engaged me. How old

Roy Fowler  26:18  
was he when you went to work there. How old was he a pioneer? Or I

Speaker 1  26:26  
would say so, yes, yes. I would say so, right. Well, we're not, no, I wouldn't say he was a pioneer in the early of early days of film, but he was about the only firm what manufactured cameras, Williamsons. I did, believe they did. They made a camera they were operating from Willesden, but, but anyway, we they use the Vinton Model H camera with British acoustic sound. Well, I'd

Roy Fowler  27:01  
still like to Yes. Ask about Mr. Vinton himself. Yes, what you remember of him?

Unknown Speaker  27:16  
A very good employer and

Roy Fowler  27:21  
friendly, distant,

Speaker 1  27:24  
friendly, friendly. And he would come up, and if you were making things, turning things, and one of the things he's pet things was that to leave a sharp edge on anything was very, very, something very, very serious, right? And you always had to make if you were turning, to remove the sharp edge that. So there was never any sharp edges.

Roy Fowler  27:54  
Was he a good doer himself? Could he operate? I really

Speaker 1  27:59  
wouldn't know, but I think he must have gone through the business, some through engineering. And

Roy Fowler  28:04  
was he the inventor, or did he have people working for him who designed the equipment? Was he an engineer or

Speaker 1  28:12  
a businessman? I can't, I can't remember his name. He was a well known he was well known in the cinema business. And then he had a Mr. Sadler, who was our foreman, who also was a very good engineer, you know,

Roy Fowler  28:34  
had the camera been designed before you arrived? Or did you work on the prototype? It was more or less designed while I was there, right? Yes, so you actually built the first one, yes. And

Speaker 1  28:50  
we it was more or less in little bits and pieces. And then he had an inquiry from the government at Schubert over the establishment at Shoeburyness, they wanted a camera which they could put in a pit to photograph shells and all that sort of thing they were doing down there. And then we were all put on overtime getting this, this prototype camera together, which was the only one they had to get ready for the ministry, which that was the forerunner of it

Roy Fowler  29:27  
was the camera wholly original? Or was it based on another camera, the Mitchell or the debris? It

Speaker 1  29:35  
probably was being based on the Mitchell camera, the Bittle NC camera primary, like for shape and magazine. But of course, it was. He actually manufactured all the stuff, the movement and all that sort of thing,

Roy Fowler  29:53  
and designed it too. Not just manufactured it, but it was designed, right? Yes, was it a good camera? Very, very good indeed.

Speaker 1  30:01  
In fact, I believe, I don't know how it become the movement that is the, probably the one you saw in the Museum of the

Speaker 2  30:14  
Yes, actually worked on my first movie camera was a model, H, oh, you was at vindons. No, well, in studios, well, in Garden City Studios, yes, there's entirely different from the Mitchell you look through the film that's right in the gate. Yeah, just swing the gate shooting. Had to look through the film. Yes,

Speaker 1  30:48  
you know, we were paid by the hour. I think that at that time, I got one and six an hour, which was considered better than the average engineering rate, which was around about one problems an hour.

Roy Fowler  31:05  
What kind of time would you put in

Unknown Speaker  31:11  
much shorter hours of my apprenticeship? Yes,

Roy Fowler  31:13  
but it wasn't a 40 hour week

Speaker 1  31:18  
eight till half past five. I think it was eight till one half past 12 on a Saturday. Yes, yes. So you

Roy Fowler  31:26  
were making a reasonable amount of money, at least you considered yourself a lot of overtime. No, did you consider yourself well paid or adequately paid?

Speaker 1  31:41  
Yes, consider the rates that that project at the time were quite, quite reasonable right

Roy Fowler  31:50  
now, tell us about the combination of the Vinton camera and British acoustic sound. How

Speaker 1  31:56  
well say they used the Vinton camera for the picture, British acoustic for the sound. This was

Roy Fowler  32:02  
one of one of the studios asked for this. Did they go my British right at where is LinkedIn, or where they

Speaker 1  32:11  
were sitting? Okay. But anyway, I had the job of doing this camera with a recording unit on the back. And, of course, I used to handle all the blueprints which came from British acoustic films in the manufacture of the camera and the unit. And this subsequently I wrote, I thought, well, I'll write to British acoustics to see what prospects they were there. You see, that's what made it. How I first was introduced to British acoustic. I went down there and saw Tommy law. He was the chief engineer there, and they had a job at that particular time on 16 mill cameras and projectors. But I'd got no experience whatsoever on 16 mil at all. So that was out. But he did say they were enlarging the premises, and they were going in more for 35 millimeter stuff, and they would let me know. Well, quite frankly, I thought it was a matter of a sort of a dismissal, but I was very surprised some weeks later that they decided that they wrote to me and said they would accept me on the terms that I'd asked for. Could

Roy Fowler  33:40  
we just for a moment, go back to this combination of the Vinton camera and the British acoustic film sound system. Can you tell me exactly how it worked? This was presumably one of the first sound on film systems in a studio. Yes,

Speaker 1  33:57  
no, I wouldn't even know. You wouldn't know that, right? I wouldn't even know that. Can

Roy Fowler  34:01  
you describe it? How it worked together? Did you build a blimp for for the camera? Oh,

Unknown Speaker  34:08  
no, no, no.

Roy Fowler  34:11  
How were they synchronized? The camera, sound camera, bug

Speaker 1  34:16  
ears. Oh, I see there's a mechanical camera, and the the rear of the camera was all Noel out, and then you had the small unit with the sprockets. So you were laced from the from the magazine down to the camera, through the sound unit right the way up.

Roy Fowler  34:35  
It's a single system, single Ah, right. I understand now I get Yes, and it was used for newsreel. Was that the purpose not for studio I see, right? Okay, difficult to edit. Yeah, did you ever see it in operation? No, no, you've no idea what the quality of the sound was like.

Speaker 1  34:58  
I believe it was used it. Extensively. You know what you know after they received it,

Roy Fowler  35:05  
and what now have they got the soundtrack down to? Is it no SMPT standard, or is it British?

Speaker 1  35:15  
Probably where, but I can't even remember. I've got an idea. It was variable density, yes, but I'm not too sure about that.

Roy Fowler  35:26  
I was curious about the width of the cell by this time be

Speaker 1  35:29  
the same the snpt, right, yes, yeah. On the on the but of course, you did at that time. You did, of course, have the you started off with a silent picture, then they put the track on, cut the track off, but you still had the high picture, but it subsequently they reduced it to the academy. The academy,

Roy Fowler  35:53  
right? Yeah. The reason I want to get all that you can remember about this is because I would suspect you're probably the sole survivor of British acoustic films. So the more we know about them, I think the better. And vintons, for that matter, although they're still in business,

Speaker 1  36:10  
but vintons are dead now, yeah, it's

Roy Fowler  36:14  
a different vintons Now,

Speaker 1  36:17  
Paddy, who I knew, like when he was a child, when he used the father used to bring him. He his brother. He lost his brother, died of cancer some few years ago. But paddy Vinton. I think they call him Bill Vinton, but I, when I see him, I always call him Paddy, and he is still with them like it still is vintons at Bury St Edmunds, but of course, they don't do much camera work now, mostly, Vinton is always very pleased to see me in and he has asked me, he said, Can you tell me what my father did before he started The firm up of wintons, but I couldn't tell him that I didn't know.

Roy Fowler  37:06  
So you make the switch to British acoustic

Speaker 1  37:10  
from, as I say, I joined British acoustic on October 1935 oh, that late, yeah, yes. Well, with wintons, four or five years,

Roy Fowler  37:25  
we're well into the sound era, okay. Well, tell us what you did then at British acoustic. British acoustic, yeah, yes. Or if we if we've missed anything,

Speaker 1  37:39  
well, not really, because, as I say, we used to manufacture a Model H camera in those days, about one a month. Yeah. And there was myself, another chap who, he's deceased now. Then there was another fellow, Dennis Robertson. He's still alive, like we're still friendly with each other, but they say we are on then, of course, they also did printers, and they there was a system, and Lawley, I believe, they had a they had a light change system where vintons made rotary printers, and he used the Lawley light system for altering the lights the printing light, the printer lights. Yeah, right, yes. Used to then he used to make protein developing machines. And I remember putting four developing machines in at Kays at Queensbury Park, guys. I say it's a long, long time ago, in

Roy Fowler  38:54  
effect, then equipment such as this was all handmade or customized. Well more

Speaker 1  38:59  
or less, yeah, yes, more or less there was only vintons who actually did this sort of thing. You know, Ted Warner. Ted warring them, Well, Ted Ted Warner must have come to vintons after I'd left and talking about Ted Warner I did see in the cinema veterans. He's gone, you know, and I've thought about him several times. Yes, any

Roy Fowler  39:29  
other people from those days who went on to fame and fortune in there in any way?

Speaker 1  39:39  
Well, as I say, Dennis Robertson, he, he decided he threw in his lot with bell and how. And he worked mainly on printers and laboratory equipment. You know, he was, he was quite well known. Were

Roy Fowler  39:58  
any Bell and how? Cameras made in this country. Do you know, I don't think no, no, just lab equipment. Well, as I say, any memories you have of your time at Vinton or we'll, we'll move on to British acoustic and what you did?

Speaker 1  40:17  
Well, the time that I was with vintons, I must say, with the happiest times of my youth, or the younger days, very, very happy there, and, you know, it was quite a good atmosphere. Or they'll say we were paid by the hour. If there was a holiday or coronation, the place closed, but you didn't get paid at all in those days. Do

Roy Fowler  40:52  
you remember your working life as happy? Was it a happy time in the country? Your memories of England then in the 30s, the late 20s, the early 30s, when

Speaker 1  41:06  
I look back, I realized how little you knew of politics. You just knew there was parliament and a House of Lords, but you'd got no idea. I of the system, of the working system at all.

Roy Fowler  41:31  
How did you see yourself? Were you interested in films? Did you go to the pictures? Or

Speaker 1  41:39  
it was more or less a question of, after I went to Pathy, I more or less kept in free as I kept into the business. And I've been so I've been in the business right all the way through. You see, like when I joined British acoustic, I was with them 26 years,

Roy Fowler  42:01  
but you didn't. You weren't particularly interested in films as such. It was just the engineering aspect. Yeah, manufacturer. Did you go to the cinema? Not a great not a great deal. Not a great deal,

Speaker 1  42:14  
right? Okay, I used to go to Eve in school, like when I was living at Chelsea at the time, in the earlier days, and then they used to one of the nights we used to go along to the Chelsea Polytechnic in Manresa road to do certain experiments and things. But I wasn't particularly clever, just ordinary, but I seem to have got much wiser and terribly efficient as the years, where,

Roy Fowler  42:59  
as you went on, okay, can we just reload now? Do.

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Okay, yes,

Speaker 1  0:04  
they say life become much more interesting when I joined British acoustic films, right?

Roy Fowler  0:10  
When I tell us, what you can remember? Well, your career there?

Speaker 1  0:17  
I didn't realize it at the time, but they didn't tell me, but I'd only been there a month or so that they put me in, maybe in charge of a small department where they repaired the projectors. The Eclipse Goon want Eclipse projectors. They had a sound side there as well, but it was sound side project aside. Although they were working on the same floor, they were two different departments, and Tommy law wanted to smash that unit. And like, I had the job. I didn't realize at the time, but I had the job. Like the sound unit had a lathe, and when they went home, they would lock, lock the keys up so that you couldn't use it, and all that sort of thing, which was a Mr. Law could see what a terrible setup was, or so anyway, like they put me in charge of the projector side, so he gradually it all merged into one.

Roy Fowler  1:35  
This, then was really just plain bloody mindedness on the part of some people. Was it or jealousy or fear for that. I

Speaker 1  1:42  
believe the people who worked in the sound department worked at British acoustic when they were in the West End, somewhere in I think they were at Argyll Street in those days. And of course, they came down there, and because they didn't want to have anything to do with people on projectors and art lamps and all that sort of thing, you say. But of course, say British acoustic were a very tiny unit then, but this was at Woodruff road. But like I joined them at Woodruff Road, Shepherds Bush.

Roy Fowler  2:17  
Is it still a studio sound system is it installed in studios? It was

Speaker 1  2:24  
that time. It was some years later that British acoustic didn't manufacture the sound head, Moyes of Camden down. It was still in existence. They built the sound head, and then we used to have the gomont Eclipse projectors.

Roy Fowler  2:51  
Well, no, is it still a single system? Or it's still a single system? It was a specific camera. I wondered if there were a separate sound. I have

Speaker 1  3:01  
nothing whatever to do. When I joined British acoustic, I had nothing further to do with any cameras. No, it was all on the cinema side, right that I can't do.

Roy Fowler  3:13  
Okay? Well, then you'll have to describe Well, the the equipment that you worked on. I

Speaker 1  3:24  
Yeah, well, as the the years progressed, the gomon at that particular time had mainly all Western Electric equipment in their cinemas. Well, when Moyes were making a sound head, we did the projectors and the arc lamps, and we were gradually replacing Western Electric with British acoustic in there. And as the years went on, the sound head became the equivalent of anything that Western Electric made with fluid fly wheels and all that sort of thing.

Roy Fowler  4:14  
Am I right in thinking bill that the great problem was not to infringe patents that the Americans, especially with very defensive

Speaker 1  4:21  
with the fluid flywheel, they experimented, in the end, they had an aluminum shell with some special fluid, glycerine, industrial glycerine, and sealed that up and that caused the drag and filtered out any Well, flutter, right? Yes.

Roy Fowler  4:48  
So you say it was a very acceptable, oh, a very old quality sound, very acceptable. And I think people have said to me that it was especially good on re recording, unlike. Uh, Western Electric where you you lost a lot of quality in dubbing, is that something you ever really

Speaker 1  5:07  
wouldn't know, right? I wouldn't, really, wouldn't, said to me, the bloke who did the recording was bloke named Brown. I forget his Christian he's still alive. He is still alive. He did, did the RE recording and all that sort of thing, although I had very little to do with that,

Roy Fowler  5:34  
I see. Well, then tell us more about your work and the conditions, how the company treated you. Very, very

Speaker 1  5:42  
good, you see. And of course, when I joined join British acoustic, I was paid weekly where you've got two weeks holiday, which against my hourly pay, where I lost all my time I was I was paid two weeks holiday, sick pay a bonus at Christmas was very, very acceptable. Was

Roy Fowler  6:07  
it still an independent company, or had it become,

Speaker 1  6:11  
had it become, believe Mark ostras, it was a subsidiary of the gomont company, Project blue sticks, all right, yes, with the mark ostras And they, they were very, very good,

Roy Fowler  6:25  
had Austria's money started it, or had in

Unknown Speaker  6:27  
so really not run

Roy Fowler  6:30  
okay, though it might even have been GB before the austras, if it goes back to The beginning of right. Well, then take us through the world.

Speaker 1  6:45  
Then they made a very acceptable sound head. The projectors, they were imported from Germany. What they were Magnus came from Munich. The art lamp came from America, Brinker art lamps. We used to build them up as a unit. Less than all. Like after we there was quite a big as we were growing. It grew that we probably have 50 or 60 people there, and later, more than that, you see manufacturing the sound here themselves. And were

Roy Fowler  7:30  
the projectors marketed as under one name, or were the individual components or branded as they were? They

Speaker 1  7:39  
didn't. They didn't sell anything individually. No, it was just a, just a system.

Roy Fowler  7:45  
So it was sold as a British acoustic project,

Speaker 1  7:49  
because it was even sold, probably hired out to the,

Roy Fowler  7:53  
ah, on a rental basis, or, Oh, yes, what with the service contract, right? Well, refreshed by a cup of so

Speaker 1  8:02  
like I joined them in 1925 I think we can more or less jump to the war period 1939

Roy Fowler  8:17  
so you said, 25

Speaker 1  8:21  
1939 1939 No, I joined British acoustic in 1935

Roy Fowler  8:27  
Right, right? You said 25 but it's 35 right? To get it straight, yeah,

Speaker 1  8:33  
we're going up to now, to 1939 right at the beginning of the war, right? What they did during the war, they manufactured, we used to do about 10 a month of the n type portables. They were originally made by Ernest Moy a 35 millimeter. And then they were subsequently manufactured by British acoustic act Woods Road, which had say had grown where they'd got loads of Blaze milling machines. They'd got their sheet metal workshop paint shops, and it was a, positively a manufacturing unit.

Unknown Speaker  9:22  
They still serviced cinemas and all that sort of thing. But I'll say

Speaker 1  9:30  
that we did the 35 mil end type portable camera. Was his projector, projector and sound unit. It was made to a naval specification. So I was told that it had to be a certain size to get it through certain positions on a boat. They use them on a boat, on in the Navy, use them. I. Uh, so the ministry was interested in taking all those, all the ones we could supply, because 1939 then then become the pony war period, where there was nothing doing, and we were still, although there was such a shortage of metal and materials and all that sort of thing, we couldn't understand why at British acoustic we were able to get all the materials to make these projectors, which we thought was for entertainment, and we were very dissatisfied, all of us that dissatisfied that we were making what we thought was for entertainment, for people's entertainment. So they had to, they sent down somebody from the Ministry of Information to explain, like, the position of the phony war and how important they were to supply to the different units where the troops were, all over England, Scotland, Ireland, to sort of keep their morale up, you see, like so, like, we were manufacturing these, a hell of A lot of them

Speaker 2  11:21  
made a lot of educational film and training films.

Speaker 1  11:25  
That's right during that period. Of course we we manufactured the, what they called the dome trainer dude at River. This was a, well, I went to the one at Portsmouth. It's probably a big dome round, about the size of this room, a complete

Roy Fowler  11:48  
dome, which is, what about 15 feet across, would you say?

Speaker 1  11:52  
Some something like this. And it was in the nature of a dome. And then the projector was set up almost at the rear. It had a, instead of the academy aperture plate, it was a circular aperture plate. And then Technicolor used to make the film of the sky with an airplane up in the sky. And then, of course, that was projected onto the dome to give it a realistic effect that it was the sky. And then had electronic gun. Had an electronic gun there, where this was to help train the units on for firing gun to get the gunnery anti aircraft gunnery and the operator, who was being taught he would shoot at the plane electronically, which projected a slightly like the The operator couldn't see it, but the left tenants and the people who were there, they could see, as soon as he pressed electronically, there was a yellow, little yellow spot appeared on the screen to see how accurate he was, you see, and all that sort of thing. Quite a lot of those. But they went all over.

Roy Fowler  13:19  
Was it a very complicated piece of equipment? Was it a complex

Speaker 1  13:23  
it was a standard, real, standard, n type, portable projector with a picture and sound on 1000 watt incandescent lamp. And you could use it for front or rear projection for the sound head, you know, was manufactured for rear projection as well. Yes, did. It did quite a lot of those.

Roy Fowler  13:58  
Was anything being done for the home front for the civilian population, or was it all for the services?

Speaker 1  14:09  
The only thing we did for the civil side of it was just keep, keep repairs in a repair shop, projectors or anything you know of a minor scale. Then, of course, during later on, they made signaling lamps for the Navy ships and all that sort of thing. Tell

Roy Fowler  14:36  
me, were there many cinemas equipped with British acoustic was all the GB circuit, for

Speaker 1  14:43  
example, yes, yes. On all the big the state, Cuba and that, I expect it still is British acoustic there, yeah, all these big go months, you know,

Roy Fowler  14:59  
outside of the. Business then, quite little known compared to Western Electric or to our

Speaker 1  15:08  
I wouldn't say they were known outside of the England. Well, well known in England.

Roy Fowler  15:16  
Yes. Do you know if they were exported to the the Empire? Is it then? Warner, not, not at all. No,

Unknown Speaker  15:24  
okay, I shouldn't think so. Did

Roy Fowler  15:27  
you stay with them throughout the war? Or did you Yes,

Speaker 1  15:29  
I was with them throughout the war. Yeah, it was during at that period where they decided to transfer everything down to Mitchell Dean in Gloucestershire. And of course the majority, Mr. Law asked me if I would like to go, and I said, No, I wanted to stay up here there. So the majority of the firm and the machinery was all taken down to Mitchell Dean, which is ranked Xerox. Now, I believe it's, believe it's closed. Now, you know,

Roy Fowler  16:14  
what did that do to you? Yeah, I say, what did that do to you? Oh, well,

Speaker 1  16:21  
strangely enough, things went they continued, and things went a lot better than was anticipated. We wasn't bombed. The building wasn't actually bombed, although there was bombing around. So they started again at the same manufacturing, still keeping on with the N type signaling equipment and electronic they started doing electronic work in as much that. Not that I knew much about them, but anyway, at that particular time, I was Chief Inspector, and had to pass all the when the Ministry of Information and the people that come round, I used to show them round, and then I used to have to sign the paperwork up and All that sort of thing. Then they also did a, if you remember, just during, perhaps during the war, when the aircraft they came over, their engines were always out of tune. Yes, well, at a job there that teaching pilots that they're in an aircraft and that you could almost, you know, is all related to offset the engine hum and all that sort of thing. Quite a not. I'm not really sure what Mitchell Dean actually made during that period, during the war. You mean, they certainly made bits up to manufactured stuff and then set it up for assembly. To us,

Roy Fowler  18:15  
were secret things perhaps made then, no,

Speaker 1  18:17  
I wouldn't have called them not, not really secret, no.

Roy Fowler  18:27  
So that really was the your wartime activity. Then

Speaker 1  18:32  
after the war, because we went back to the cinema, things again, and, you know, making stuff at the cinema

Roy Fowler  18:46  
immediately, I suppose in 1945 Yes, Rachel, right now, this at this stage, good,

Speaker 1  18:54  
at that time, exploring quite a couple of 100 people.

Roy Fowler  18:58  
It's become part of the rank organization, has it not That's right?

Speaker 1  19:02  
Yes, I remember Lord rank coming round, and he shook hands with me when we were showing him projector and all the equipment, what we were manufacturing. And because at that time, Mr. Law went over to Bell and how, and he got the manufacturing rights for the 16 mill ball and how projectors. And of course, they were made under license. By then, we changed our name from British acoustic, and we became rank precision industries in the engine, rank precision engineering.

Roy Fowler  19:44  
So what are them? What are they making that you remember, projectors, the 16 mil Bell and how model

Speaker 1  19:51  
cameras, the 60 mill cameras, eight mill cameras,

Roy Fowler  19:56  
the 70 the bell and how 70s. Theories. Do you mean any, I most 35 mill cameras? Any of those things were being made?

Speaker 1  20:06  
No, didn't manufacture any 35 Bill cameras. No, no. Mainly, all 16 mill stuff, you know. And of course, that was the main, main work. British British acoustic did have their probably, l1, 615, or one which was manufactured by British acoustic, picture and sound, they said they were very, very good. But of course, they were superseded by the American product, the bell and hell product.

Roy Fowler  20:47  
And you stayed with them until when you're now part old rank organization. I

Speaker 1  20:53  
was with them 26 years. I had a 25 year certificate, you know which I've still got that damn thing. But

Roy Fowler  21:03  
is that what they gave you after 25

Speaker 1  21:06  
years? And then at that time, there was purchase stacks on on goods, and they gave us we could go to any anywhere I went to the army and navy stores, and I selected a Cintiq arm chair, and at that time, as they give it to you as a gift, you didn't have to pay purchase tax on it. And, you know, I'd get very quite a nice chair that

Roy Fowler  21:38  
was your 25 year President. No, that's better than a certificate,

Unknown Speaker  21:43  
which was a lot then don't sound much these days, but

Roy Fowler  21:46  
what do you remember of the rank organization as an employer? Did you enjoy working for them? Oh, yes, yeah, they looked after their people.

Speaker 1  22:01  
I wouldn't say they exactly looked after you, but they weren't. It was a complex system where they had their own carpentry section, where they used to make all the big duo Sonic speakers for the cinemas you like. So you had a very good carpentry section, which manufactured, they did all their cases for the 16 mill projectors and all that sort of thing. Covered them with the rexine covering all that sort of thing. Quite, quite extensive that way.

Speaker 2  22:39  
Yes, I seem to remember they had a bill of Act. Travel organizing,

Speaker 1  22:47  
a bloke named Burley, he wanted to all the rates of pay wasn't, wasn't anywhere compared, although it was, we were manufacturing, was in the film business. We were we were only paying more or less engineering rates of pay. Well, Burley, he wanted to organize act because Mr. Law wouldn't recognize act. TT, we had a one day stoppage where I joined, like we that time I belonged, that's when I joined the act, or just before that, and we marched through all the offices as a protest. They were there was me in charge of the big section, but as I belong to act like none of the others did belong to act. So I was marching through as a protester. They stopped me a day's days pay. I remember, what

Roy Fowler  23:58  
year was this Bob? What year was, must

Speaker 1  24:00  
have been just after the war, right? And

Roy Fowler  24:04  
were all the plant, or was all the plant non union stage? Or were there any other mixed It

Speaker 1  24:12  
was nuts somewhere in the ACD, but generally speaking, it was a non union, non union firm. Some the people who worked on the lays and engineering, they were in the engineering unit.

Roy Fowler  24:27  
But was it a kind of strongly anti union atmosphere on the part of management? Not really. They didn't mind.

Speaker 1  24:33  
No, I don't think anybody cared. Just quite a youngish it was a youngish firm. We're youngish, a younger generation. Yes, I don't think people cared.

Roy Fowler  24:45  
No, I don't mean the shop floor. I mean management was management, and our union

Speaker 1  24:52  
wasn't bad. Mr. Law was a very, very good man, yes, yes. And Mr. Auditor, and all of them all very, very good. It, let's say a very, very happy, generally speaking, we were all very, very happy.

Roy Fowler  25:06  
But did they resist the union coming in to organize? Well, did they try to prevent I don't

Speaker 1  25:10  
think Mr. Law objected to the unions. What he objected with Act was that he was afraid that if he recognized act, they would want to impose the studio rates of pay into our engineering firm, which they just couldn't possibly make pay. And this was why Mr. Law was right, definitely opposed to act. Yes, I think after, after a while, they, they got together, and they, they compromised, you know, with it, and he, they, you know. And then we did recognize Act had not

Roy Fowler  25:52  
a eu tried, for example, there was a you Yeah,

Speaker 1  25:55  
in there. And then the people who were in charge, they did. They organized asset for the supervisors? In fact, although I belong to the AC to I realized now I should never have joined asset, but because I was paying for two blobbing lots there, yeah, but that suit that fell through. Were

Roy Fowler  26:20  
you active in Act? No, no, no, who was the organizer? Do you miss Mr. Burley? What he was? What shop steward? Do you remember who your organizer was at Silver square?

Speaker 1  26:31  
Well, there were so few of us which were act so

Roy Fowler  26:35  
you never you never saw anyone from head office. Probably I never did. No okay, but thereafter they would negotiate an agreement. They definitely had. They did negotiate an agreement of recognition, and that was to your advantage. Do you think you you never regretted joining AC? Well, I, like

Speaker 1  26:55  
I was one of the few that but join, I've never regretted belonging to the union. You see, I

Roy Fowler  27:05  
hadn't meant to come on to the Union at that stage, because we haven't really finished your working life yet.

Speaker 1  27:11  
You see, it came. I got to the stage where, although I finished up with Chief Inspector at that time, they organized the studio department, organized the sales for cameras and all that sort of thing. So they had to have a separate department down at ranks, at Shepherd's Bush to look after all the cameras which were imported and then sold to the customers. That's where I come in. I was in charge of this, the studio section of where all the cameras Harry flex, Mitchells, the bell and how film printers for the laboratories, the splicers and all that side, that's where, this is where my act side eventually was very essential to me. This

Roy Fowler  28:14  
you made that move. When did you move to line grove? No, no,

Speaker 1  28:21  
still at still at Woodrow road, right? A separate section. Yes, as I say,

Roy Fowler  28:27  
Ah, I misunderstood. But you, you changed your job function, is what you're saying. Well, I

Speaker 1  28:34  
applied to change, right? They were very reluctant. I had to keep on for months and months, they were very reluctant to let me go to start this section. This was under Dennis Robertson, yes. He was the clerical band, like I looked after all the mechanical administration.

Roy Fowler  28:55  
He took, he took the did the minister? Yes. Do you remember the year that you made that move? Still in the 40s?

Speaker 1  29:15  
Might have been in the 50s to come on to the this studio section. Well,

Roy Fowler  29:24  
you, you tell us about that, if I understand you rightly, you're saying that all the, all the equipment that the rank organization imported came through your hands, cameras, the camera, cameras, camera equipment, right? Well, you also mentioned editing equipment. You said spices and such, yes. Well, the studio equipment is that it

Speaker 1  29:43  
Yes, feeding edited equipment that came from mainly Act made at that time, yes, that more or less went direct from there to the customer. Did

Roy Fowler  29:53  
you have anything to do with specifications or the purchases made by another?

Unknown Speaker  29:59  
The only

Speaker 1  30:03  
at that particular time, the Mitchell camera was a very fine camera made in Los Angeles. But at that particular time, there was a ruling in England that if a camera of similar equality was on the market here, they had to buy British that is how the new camera came into being. There must then I used like was in charge of all that new camera equipment used to go to Peterborough, optical measuring tools of the company, well, first of all, the Newell engineering company, and then optical measuring tools at Maidenhead. They were a subsidiary of Newell's. And then I used to go there once a month to pass out the cameras. What they were making you say,

Speaker 2  31:01  
because I use the first new camera to be used in the studio.

Speaker 1  31:05  
Oh, yes, and then the blimp and all that sort of thing.

Roy Fowler  31:08  
This was not a self blimp camera. This was what based on the NC, rather than the BNC, did they? But they also made a copy of the BNC, didn't they? No. Noel, right?

Speaker 1  31:22  
No, it was at that particular time, the studios were very anxious to get the BNCs into the country. And but of course, with the new this ruling about the new camera, they were very reluctant to allow anybody to import the BNC so, but I wasn't, I didn't partake of this, but they imported a BNC to prove in the studio that the time a camera was taken out of a blimp, and that and the BNC was So much faster in Superior that was allowed them to import the BNC, which was virtually the death of the new camera.

Roy Fowler  32:11  
It sounds like the 40s, because that was the time when dollars was so scarce. Yeah, and obviously, $25,000 for a, b and c is a great deal of money. It could have been, it

Speaker 2  32:25  
would have been because Gainsborough closed about 19, 4950, and this was a couple of years before. Yeah, there must have been, No, I've

Speaker 1  32:33  
never been a one for keeping a diary or, great, no, I've gone along and because I realize now that you know, you can remember surface things, but not precise dates.

Roy Fowler  32:51  
Well, some people do, some people don't. It's a matter of the individual, I think. And

Unknown Speaker  32:57  
of course, but anyway, may

Roy Fowler  33:01  
I was well, just just to continue. I'm

Speaker 1  33:06  
sorry, where I got terribly fed up with doing what I was doing, maybe would have been better if I'd have taken some time off and had a two or three months there. But anyway, I was terribly fed up, and I decided to leave. After 26 years, I decided to leave just prior to prior to this. They'll say I used to hang all the air reflex cameras, which was the first reflex camera in this country.

Roy Fowler  33:39  
I want to ask you, what actually you did with them? Did you strip them down? Well,

Speaker 1  33:46  
when they, when they came to us, we checked them, and then picture tested them, double exposure for steadiness, and all that sort of thing, right? And then, then they say, Gee Goon Kay Lee market it them. But of course, that's when the they sold the cameras. But the camera man always phone through to me, bypass the head office. They always phone through to me, and that's how I got to come to know and get into the studio side of

Roy Fowler  34:20  
it, you did? You do the optics as well? Yes,

Speaker 1  34:25  
the Taylor Hobson lenses. Well, they used to come over at that time with Schneider lenses and Zeiss lenses, like you got your collimator. We used to collimate the lenses make jigs up so that you realize what a load of old rubbish it was at that particular time. The engraving, you know, on the German lens is how inaccurate they were, you know, and some of the people, some of the cameramen would come. I mean, they would bring in fine grain printer stock, and they wanted to be they wanted to photograph the lenses on a fine grain Well, of course, you you had to have a terrible lot of light to even illuminate the subject on that you see.

Roy Fowler  35:20  
But these were pre production tests. Were they the camera man assigned to a film would want to test

Speaker 1  35:27  
out? Sometimes camera men were buying the Harry flex camera, which sold at that time, the camera head itself about 520 pounds. Yeah. And of course, that it's the same camera is although it's been modified up and all that sort of thing. But anyway, Mr. Samuelson, he was a customer of Jim at GB Kay Lee, and he decided to buy an Arriflex camera. That's how I first he had the first, his first camera. This is then he said to me, he wanted certain modifications done on the audit. And I said, well, that we did not do that. We just sold the camera. He said, Would I do it for him. Privately, I said, Well, I could, could do that. So, like, it was a matter of, he wanted the German plugs. I didn't agree about this. He wanted the German plugs put on and films and equipment plugs put on that all that sort of thing. That's then he had two or three cameras, and he said, would I be interested in servicing the cameras for him? And that's when I used to go to on a Saturday morning, I used to go to his private house in crespig Me road to service his few cameras. These

Roy Fowler  36:57  
for the record. We're talking of Sydney. We're talking of Sydney for the record. Sydney. Samuelson, yes, but Rick didn't mind. No, no, you said, Mr. Samuelson, so I'm just establishing that it was said, right. Okay. And these

Speaker 1  37:13  
I used to go on a Saturday morning. I used to get a fiver. These are the early

Roy Fowler  37:16  
days for Sam is as a renter. He had a little

Speaker 1  37:20  
little little spare room, which, because there was 16 Miller reflexes as well on this, like so, really, I was one of the founder members of the Samuelson there. Now this, this would be no 1919,

Speaker 1  37:51  
7219 62 I would have left ranks at 90. I retired from Samuelson since 1972 I was within 10 years, which brought me back to 62 now would I think I would have been about 56 when I left ranks? I know they had just started a pension scheme. We paid some they paid into it, but as I left, on my own accord, I lost their pension. But I think what I paid in. I could have had as a lump sum, but there was a ruling in the rule book at that particular time that you could leave it in till 65 and have it, have it then, which I elected to do, because if I'd have had it on lump sum, I would have had to have paid income tax on that so, and I'm very, very glad I did, because it was when I was working for Sydney that ranks wrote to me. I suppose they had this, this, oh, no, is after I retired, I got this, this bit of pension from ranks, which didn't amount much, I think it was about five or 600 pounds, and didn't, didn't amount to much a month. But when I retired, ranks wrote and asked me, they would be very, very pleased if I could write a record down of what I did for the firm during my period there. They said that it was an entirely a voluntary thing, which I did do, and I. Much to my surprise, they gave me a pension, which, you know, which is about 32 pounds a month. Now, yeah, what I did, and I did tell a few. I said I was, I said I left of my own accord and but I said I was given to understand that the department was closing down, you know, but,

Roy Fowler  40:26  
yeah, well, you'd spent, what, almost 30 years, then 26 years. Yeah, that's long. Long.

Speaker 1  40:35  
Did that 500 pound? I don't think there wouldn't have been any record. But I suppose through that being on their records at 65 they were paying this tiny little amount out, which was very, very small. So I like one thing I did, right? You lucked out there. I joined Sydney, right? 1962

Roy Fowler  41:05  
So now tell us about the early days Samuelson Reynolds,

Speaker 1  41:08  
Sydney was very, very pleased to for me to join him in as much he knew that the camera bent at that particular time. It was all our reflex. And Newell, which we were handling, and the customers were coming to me direct. And he knew that as soon as I joined him, the customers would come to me there, which they, majority of them did. Do you see? So it set him up immediately with a he was able to buy more cameras, you see. But of course, at Samuelson's, I was on cameras all the time, Mitchell, Mitchell cameras, Mitchell, high speed cameras, the mark one, Mark Two, and the BNCs and I was responsible for all the features. He had no opposition at that time.

Roy Fowler  42:10  
What? What would you do, Bill? Tell us what you did with these cameras.

Speaker 1  42:17  
Well, when I, when I first joined him, of course, he there was, there was only, only myself. And of course, when the repairs wanted, the services the camera wanted service in, I would strip them right down, build them up again, collimate them, check the lenses, film, test them, and to put back into service. Would you

Roy Fowler  42:43  
machine new parts? Or would you get those manufacturer? They

Speaker 1  42:47  
would all come from our respect? No, there was, I had no lath or nothing. Does, no nothing, nothing at all.

Roy Fowler  42:57  
When a camera came in from one job, was it inspected very thoroughly, or would it be booked out until someone complained about a problem with with service or the family? Oh

Speaker 1  43:09  
yes. Well, this is, you see, they would be in the office knowing a camera would be coming back, and they would book it out for the next day. And of course, sometimes the camera never come back until half past 10 or 11 o'clock at night. But you you still had to run the rule over it, yeah, to to make sure it was well you knew. You knew. You know you were you were so experienced and on them, you knew what to look for,

Roy Fowler  43:42  
you know, yeah, you say they were mainly areas which, what was your favorite camera?

Speaker 1  43:52  
Well, the the air reflex was the only reflex camera, yeah, see through camera at that time. Well, there was no Newman Sinclairs did one later on, but the Newman Sinclair camera wasn't, wasn't. It was a handmade camera,

Roy Fowler  44:16  
but that box like thing,

Speaker 1  44:18  
I didn't think much of it. Didn't think much other

Roy Fowler  44:23  
didn't, didn't he have any mutuals, B and C

Speaker 1  44:27  
at that time, right? Because then Mitchell's, they designed a reflex camera, which was the mark one, which also went up to 128 frames. It was the.

Unknown Speaker  0:03  
Okay, all right, yes,

Unknown Speaker  0:07  
then the we'd have these mutual cameras.

Unknown Speaker  0:12  
And at that time,

Unknown Speaker  0:15  
he was growing fast. We were the burrows at Hendon at that particular time, and then he took over spurlings at Cricklewood and had all that ordered. That's how the place at Cricklewood come into being. And of course, the it grew very, very fast where

Unknown Speaker  0:35  
they did the the various mounts for helicopters and all, all that sort of thing.

Unknown Speaker  0:43  
But mainly, it was mainly the BNC cameras

Unknown Speaker  0:48  
then.

Unknown Speaker  0:52  
And then, of course, Taylor Hobson were making the cook series two lenses.

Unknown Speaker  1:00  
We would, you know, we'd have the

Unknown Speaker  1:03  
collimator to always check them before they come in. You know, even Taylor Hobson, we found their engraving was awful. And then when you stop down, the focus

Unknown Speaker  1:16  
changed, you know, like

Unknown Speaker  1:18  
I've been up to Taylor Hobson,

Unknown Speaker  1:21  
you know, quite a little bit that was while I was at rank. I used to go out there.

Unknown Speaker  1:28  
Then while I was at Sydney's

Unknown Speaker  1:33  
panel vision was in existence, was being used at Pinewood and MGM Studios.

Unknown Speaker  1:41  
And

Unknown Speaker  1:44  
I went to service some piece of equipment at MGM and

Unknown Speaker  1:50  
Les smart. He was the charge of the engineering there.

Unknown Speaker  1:56  
He said to me, he said, Vic. He said, he said,

Unknown Speaker  2:01  
Why doesn't Sydney try for the Panavision agency?

Unknown Speaker  2:06  
And I said, Well, I said, I have thought that. Well, when I got back, I said to Sydney, I, you know, we'd had this conversation. And Sydney smiled, and he said, Well, Vicky said, I, I have, I, you don't know about it, you did, but I said, I have been trying for the agency, so which eventually he did get the agency.

Unknown Speaker  2:31  
That's when I went over three weeks to Los Angeles,

Unknown Speaker  2:39  
and Sidney said to me, VI said, when you go there, he said, When you go in their design department. He said, They won't show you anything. He said, everything will be under wraps.

Unknown Speaker  2:52  
Well, I was surprised when I got there. I got on immediately struck up a friendship with the President. Bob Gott Jok, and when I took their everything was open, and they didn't even have a reflex camera. They they were buggering about with a an NC camera

Unknown Speaker  3:15  
to reflex an NC camera,

Unknown Speaker  3:19  
they say. And of course, when I was telling him about the ARRIFLEX and all that sort of thing,

Unknown Speaker  3:27  
when I got back home, I had the ARRIFLEX layout at the reflex, you know, the the mirror position and all that which I sent to them

Unknown Speaker  3:38  
tech that he was a Japanese designer. He's still there.

Unknown Speaker  3:42  
Poor old Bob got joke. He got murdered.

Unknown Speaker  3:47  
A very nice person, but I always had a very good relationship with him. But anyway, Sydney got the agency, and of course, we used to have all Panavision equipment apart from our BNCs and other cameras,

Unknown Speaker  4:05  
65 millimeter cameras. So they used to come over. They, they were terrible. They, you see, in America, they didn't worry about noise as soon as, uh,

Unknown Speaker  4:17  
they put them in at Pinewood days. They, were so noisy they wouldn't use them. And so it came back to the workshop. I had to fill up all the holes and put in extra rolls to prevent film flap,

Unknown Speaker  4:32  
you know, to get them by. But

Unknown Speaker  4:38  
he was a great guy. Got shock.

Unknown Speaker  4:42  
Sydney has still got the agency, which is

Unknown Speaker  4:46  
must be finishing maybe this year, I don't know.

Unknown Speaker  4:52  
Well, yes, it's a different situation now. Legal trust, yeah, in a shocking right? Yeah. Legal trust.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Yeah, well, and so is Lee Panavision. So it's very difficult to know what's going to happen.

Unknown Speaker  5:07  
Yeah, well,

Unknown Speaker  5:10  
Batman was made at Pinewood. They didn't use any Panavision cameras from Sydney. They brought everything was direct from Los Angeles, and did they? Which I thought was, you know, I didn't say anything to Sydney, but I thought that was a snub

Unknown Speaker  5:27  
to prevent Sydney.

Unknown Speaker  5:30  
But you think that indicates that I believe the franchise,

Unknown Speaker  5:36  
again, Sydney

Unknown Speaker  5:39  
is experimenting. I was told he bought half a dozen movie camps. He knows that the agency is going and he bought half a dozen movie cam cameras from Austria, I believe, which I think,

Unknown Speaker  5:57  
I think good mechanically, but I think electronically. I think it was they were having quite a lot of trouble with

Unknown Speaker  6:04  
Yes,

Unknown Speaker  6:07  
but

Unknown Speaker  6:09  
Eagle trust, you see Sydney, you probably aware he got into trouble. I think owed a million, a half pounds.

Unknown Speaker  6:19  
Eagle trust took him over. Otherwise he would have gone west,

Unknown Speaker  6:24  
and now Eagle trust are in dire troubles themselves.

Unknown Speaker  6:31  
Only a week ago,

Unknown Speaker  6:34  
they evidently took over a company Express parceling in England, and anyway, they ended up they owe 35 million pound to the shareholders and stockholders. They've got us.

Unknown Speaker  6:49  
They've got to sell lots of builders equipment places which they had to try and make up. This is where I'm wondering whether Sydney's lot, although Sydney's individual subsidiary is doing all right, and that

Unknown Speaker  7:09  
if there isn't enough in the kitty for the major firm, I wondered whether they might sell cities Sydney's do

Unknown Speaker  7:17  
to get The money back.

Unknown Speaker  7:20  
Well, without the Panavision agency, it's a,

Unknown Speaker  7:24  
well, it's questionable how valuable Samuel Sims is, and I can't see that. Well, they're not going to get it, because, after all, the Panavision Well, Lee is not going to give it to someone else, are they?

Unknown Speaker  7:38  
Can you remember any sort of stories, anecdotes of life at Samuel Sims in those early days, when it was to some extent nip and tuck, wasn't it. They they didn't always know whether they were going to pay the bills at the end of the week.

Unknown Speaker  7:53  
Any of Sydney talk about anyway,

Unknown Speaker  7:56  
as I say, when we were at Hendon,

Unknown Speaker  7:59  
we were in two shops.

Unknown Speaker  8:02  
My shop

Unknown Speaker  8:05  
was a cycle shop, originally with cycles in the window. They had to leave the cycles in the window because they couldn't get a change with the council. They couldn't use it as a camera workshop, so we had to leave. And I remember Frankie warned Vaughn coming. He lived around that area at the time, he came in for some spare parts for bicycles, you know, we had a chat, you know, but

Unknown Speaker  8:33  
in the shop, the wall was knocked down into another room so that they could pass the cameras through to me for servicing, and then we had a little intercom

Unknown Speaker  8:47  
from

Unknown Speaker  8:49  
which was on on the

Unknown Speaker  8:52  
platform where the desk where the cameras were handed through

Unknown Speaker  8:58  
to Sidney's office, which was in another

Unknown Speaker  9:02  
shop,

Unknown Speaker  9:04  
and evidently he wanted you, Marshall Martin, do you have anything to do with he's dead. Now died. He was with Sydney. He knew nothing about cameras. He wasn't in a union.

Unknown Speaker  9:19  
And anyway, come through onto this little contraption. Sydney was speaking, and he wanted Marshall to go somewhere to see see something was wrong on the camera and and

Unknown Speaker  9:35  
when Sydney had finished speaking, I said to Marshall, they was only just out of fun. I said to Marshall, I said, I said, Have you got a union ticket, you know, and anyway,

Unknown Speaker  9:49  
positively frightened as Samuel sends out their wits because

Unknown Speaker  9:54  
they said, Would I please stop behind as they wanted to see me well. I.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
But when I went in there, there was Sidney and Michael Samuel, and because they were very much younger, don't forget.

Unknown Speaker  10:08  
And I thought it was a joke that, you know,

Unknown Speaker  10:14  
as I wasn't serious, but it ended up in

Unknown Speaker  10:18  
Michael, he went as white as a sheet and red in the face, and

Unknown Speaker  10:24  
just This harmless little remark, you know? And I realized I thought, well, have I made the right thing in joining Sydney at that particular time? But in Yeah. And I mean, of course, they become members themselves at the well, I think they still are. Oh yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker  10:41  
They were cameramen. They were members. As cameramen obviously didn't want to pay union rates the rental outfit, yes, I think it's a fully unionized partner.

Unknown Speaker  10:53  
And also, when they had the general office, where they used to have the blokes with the phones taking any on in the incoming orders. Well,

Unknown Speaker  11:05  
two of the men there, they wanted to organize something for the clerical side of it.

Unknown Speaker  11:12  
And Sydney sacked, and he actually sacked one of them and the other one, I think he pleaded for with Sydney and the Sydney kept him on, but for trying to organize that union at that particular time. Oh, Sydney.

Unknown Speaker  11:30  
Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  11:33  
How about they all, lots, lots of people down at Cleveland. He goes down here they, I all think Sydney's marvelous. What a nice gentleman and all that well, you know, like

Unknown Speaker  11:46  
I know him very well. You know, know the weaknesses. He probably knows my weaknesses. He's a tough cookie.

Unknown Speaker  11:54  
How about his brothers?

Unknown Speaker  11:56  
David, he was the oldest.

Unknown Speaker  11:59  
He wasn't bad.

Unknown Speaker  12:02  
He wasn't bad. They worked at movie don't use

Unknown Speaker  12:08  
Sydney was independent. He used to do a bit of photographing at Bucha studios.

Unknown Speaker  12:15  
But

Unknown Speaker  12:17  
Michael, he recently has acquired the light he has bought from Eagle Trust, the lighting side of the equipment. He calls it Michael Samuelson lighting.

Unknown Speaker  12:35  
He is still at Dutton Hill lane.

Unknown Speaker  12:39  
He's got a place at pine wood and a place at Leeds.

Unknown Speaker  12:44  
So,

Unknown Speaker  12:47  
you know,

Unknown Speaker  12:49  
so that actually belongs to Michael Samuelson and his family. Because, you know,

Unknown Speaker  12:57  
you probably know

Unknown Speaker  12:59  
and watch dynasty, and they no never well. One of the actresses in it is an actress called Emma Sams, quite a one of the leading roles in it, and she is Emma Samuelson, the daughter of Michael Samuelson, and they tell me she's a very good girl over there, you know, like,

Unknown Speaker  13:27  
not a fast as he already. Then that's, you know, they say she's very, very good. And I think

Unknown Speaker  13:34  
Sidney said that Michael had bought this firm and it Well, I think it was in trust for his children, and that probably ammo has put some money into it.

Unknown Speaker  13:47  
Well, we're well into the third generation now with the Samuelson with Mark

Unknown Speaker  13:52  
Peter, because his mother died recently. Yes, I heard that

Unknown Speaker  13:57  
very the samisms,

Unknown Speaker  14:01  
until I did certain naughty things, you know, like they always thought the world of me, you know. But

Unknown Speaker  14:12  
I think it used to upset him at that particular time they did not belong to a union, or, I don't know, but they must have done because they were cameras. So, yes, they belonged as camera. Why? I don't know why he should have been so upset to think that he's the people that he worked for him. What money? I suppose it's different

Unknown Speaker  14:36  
when you're a bus,

Unknown Speaker  14:39  
you look at Dave juniors differently when you're about, oh, when you're wearing suits, yeah, I don't know what. What about Phil measure, who was always a pain in the ass, if I was, I was concerned.

Unknown Speaker  14:56  
Did you have any dealings with Philip? It?

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Yes, but I never got on with a real pain. Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say that I always felt that

Unknown Speaker  15:11  
throughout anything

Unknown Speaker  15:14  
that I might have said, it would immediately have gone back and but of course, it's completely reversed. Now he was kicked out of bloody Samuel since or when he retired, and I don't think there's any love lost between

Unknown Speaker  15:33  
Sam Wilson's wife is Doris. She's got a sister who is film measure. Who is

Unknown Speaker  15:42  
film measures wife, right, which is why he was there in the first place,

Unknown Speaker  15:49  
right? How about reg Sutton,

Unknown Speaker  15:51  
oh, well, I used to get on quite well with REG in the sound department. Yes, yes. But I think when he left, I think he,

Unknown Speaker  16:02  
I've never met, heard this from Reggie's own lips, but I don't think that he was given a golden handshake like he was self employed all the time. He worked for Samuelson. He wasn't actually on Samuelson's book. He was a freelance who was working in Samuel summers,

Unknown Speaker  16:24  
but when he left they, I don't think he they gave him any golden hatred.

Unknown Speaker  16:31  
Was it a happy place to work? Or was just what a well paying job?

Unknown Speaker  16:37  
Yes, I would say it was

Unknown Speaker  16:41  
quite a happy place.

Unknown Speaker  16:44  
Were they customer oriented? Did they care about their customers?

Unknown Speaker  16:49  
I will say that they were serious about this. So he was really serious. And he used to say to me, he said,

Unknown Speaker  16:57  
If I couldn't keep going without your department Vic like, because I used to keep the cameras turning over all the time, and the new ones testing nude, like, knew how to collimate the lenses and use the film and scratch, you know, got we had a very, he had A very, very good reputation. Well, you left in 72 right? Yeah. How many people were you? Did you have under you? Well, at one time, there was about 15 of us. Yeah, because I would say it was around the early Middle 70s that it began to tail off. It began to be unsatisfactory. The cameraman would start bitching about the equipment, the

Unknown Speaker  17:47  
people, the people I wanted to employ as camera mechanics, just didn't exist. All you could ask for was to either advertise for an instrument maker or a tool maker, which sometimes I would get from Smiths who were the next door to Sam is at that time, and you would who'd never seen a piece of film before. So virtually, for six months,

Unknown Speaker  18:15  
they wasn't very effective, but eventually, like, they were very, very good. And those, all those people there, all Joe, Joe dunton's, all his staff, all came from underneath me. Yes, you know, I think I've trained practically all the the younger generation who been to Sydney's and then left and joined ITN and all that sort of thing. What about the earlier generation in the camera departments that Pinewood and Denham and Noel, the ones at Pinewood?

Unknown Speaker  18:51  
Bert easy, he was in charge of the camera department at Pinewood, and then he had George Ashworth,

Unknown Speaker  18:58  
who was the engineer in charge of the camera repairs and the manufacturing. And of course, George Ash was the isn't alive now. He was my foreman when I worked at Kingston and lines all those years back. So again, there was a connection

Unknown Speaker  19:17  
between us.

Unknown Speaker  19:20  
Of course, there's no camera department there. Now that's all gone.

Unknown Speaker  19:25  
Much do George Hill? George Hill? Well, yes, yeah, yes,

Unknown Speaker  19:34  
my recollection of George Hill is not very nice memories. All I know is when I used to see old George old Georges.

Unknown Speaker  19:43  
He was all honestly, he was all of a shake, and he was all right once he got the screwdriver onto a screw. But otherwise, like I believe, he suffered from drinking. I.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
I believe he was probably a very good engineer, you

Unknown Speaker  20:12  
see

Unknown Speaker  20:15  
with the ARRI flex camera, it was a very good camera. But of course, on as the lenses were improving, so the weight of the lenses were getting heavier and heavier. And of course, the camera wasn't manufactured to take it was manufactured to take three smaller lenses on a turret. You see, well,

Unknown Speaker  20:40  
I was having trouble with

Unknown Speaker  20:42  
that the lens would get knocked and it would distort the

Unknown Speaker  20:47  
body of the camera and and all the focal depth would go and you'd have an awful lot, you know, and renew the turret, and awful lot of trouble. Well, I got, I did the drawing. I thought, Well,

Unknown Speaker  21:00  
why not

Unknown Speaker  21:03  
take that turret away, throw it away, machine the front of the camera, and then put a solid front on. This is how the hard front and the arrow flex hard front. Well, I did the drawing just Sydney. Never knew anything about this, and then I wrote my letter with my drawings to Bob Gott jogger panel vision. And he did that. When I went there barely year later, to some there, they said, Vic, come and see this. Because your idea. And he did the first one. And subsequently, that's been you. That's been all, all the cameras all over the world have been ordered

Unknown Speaker  21:41  
so you could take the heaviest lenses without it ever authoring the focal depth of the camera so that your you was always in focus. So

Unknown Speaker  21:52  
like that was when

Unknown Speaker  21:55  
I was made a member of the

Unknown Speaker  22:01  
cinematographer.

Unknown Speaker  22:05  
BSC, the British society of cameras, cinematographers, like I'm an honorary member Yes, of the of that,

Unknown Speaker  22:14  
presumably you never profited. It from that innovation,

Unknown Speaker  22:20  
it was nothing to pipe pattern on it. Well,

Unknown Speaker  22:24  
I wouldn't have thought so, but, but anyway, maybe not to pat it would have been nice to recognize

Unknown Speaker  22:31  
in Sydney's manufacturing workshop to do it.

Unknown Speaker  22:37  
But I knew I've always had the highest regard to the Panavision product.

Unknown Speaker  22:44  
And of course, it has got very an excellent product now. But,

Unknown Speaker  22:51  
and of course, this

Unknown Speaker  22:54  
the designer over there. This Japanese come American.

Unknown Speaker  23:00  
He is still with them,

Unknown Speaker  23:04  
but as I say, when I

Unknown Speaker  23:08  
first went there, they never had a reflex camera.

Unknown Speaker  23:14  
They sent me a very nice letter over thanking me for the drawing I'd sent over. You know, to which sort of gave him a line, but they were about, I would say, about five years behind the flex.

Unknown Speaker  23:30  
Have you kept any of those letters, that correspondence? That's a pity, because that would have been worth saving. Oh, well, there we are.

Unknown Speaker  23:39  
So really, yes, you see,

Unknown Speaker  23:44  
I had to get rid of such a lot of stuff

Unknown Speaker  23:48  
when I went into Cleveland's, but

Unknown Speaker  23:53  
when I retired from Samuelson's, it was always my

Unknown Speaker  24:01  
ambition to

Unknown Speaker  24:04  
do, do some servicing of my own, you know, just as a retirement to get a few extra shekels in. And of course, I'd got all measuring tools, everything, all there. But unfortunately, my wife was seriously will with cancer, she was in and out of hospital, so that was one of the reasons why I left Samuelson. They wanted me to stay on as a consultant, which I didn't want to do, because of being at the beck and call of of them. So, like, I more or less gave everything up to, like to look after the wife, which I've never regretted. Like to do like she eventually, she died, of course, and

Unknown Speaker  24:47  
of course I got rid of all me idol, American screws, metric screws,

Unknown Speaker  24:56  
everything appertaining to servicing in.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Hear the camera if you see collaborator, and of course,

Unknown Speaker  25:05  
I gave it away. I had no one

Unknown Speaker  25:10  
to sell it to

Unknown Speaker  25:13  
Joe dunton's All me focal depth gages for different cameras. You know,

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
I had to sort of ask him to come to my house to take him away, you know,

Unknown Speaker  25:26  
yeah, so all the drawings, be sketches, be books. They got rid of all of them. They're gone. That's a pity, because they really belong in a museum. I wouldn't have thought the Bradford museum, you know, the National Museum of Photography.

Unknown Speaker  25:44  
Well, too late for that.

Unknown Speaker  25:48  
So your your wife died when shortly after you retired

Unknown Speaker  25:53  
the fall like her anniversary is coming up on the fourth of this month tomorrow, tomorrow, the fourth of this month in 1976 Oh, really, right. So you didn't have a happy retirement initially, really, but she wasn't like.

Unknown Speaker  26:11  
She had cancer the bladder. Had to have all her bladder removed and applied. But she wasn't a miserable woman.

Unknown Speaker  26:19  
I had a nice caravan at brightening Sea, which I used a motor, and she used to spend her time there. And she was able, at that time to do a bit of shopping and get get around, but I

Unknown Speaker  26:36  
wouldn't, I wouldn't call it a miserable even though she was so ill,

Unknown Speaker  26:41  
so ill. You know,

Unknown Speaker  26:43  
when I retired,

Unknown Speaker  26:46  
they wanted to buy me a tape recorder, which I wasn't very interested in at the time, at 65

Unknown Speaker  26:55  
I said, Could I have a dog? They laugh, but I what, eventually, what I wanted was a DAX and bitch,

Unknown Speaker  27:04  
which they gave me a standard. It was only three months old when I when Sydney presented it with Doris. When I retired, I had this little Jackson dog. And of course, I had her.

Unknown Speaker  27:19  
She only died a few years ago.

Unknown Speaker  27:23  
When did you come to Cleveland's

Unknown Speaker  27:26  
two years last May? Yes, yes, and you enjoy it here?

Unknown Speaker  27:33  
Well,

Unknown Speaker  27:39  
I was very efficient when I was at work, and this space is run very inefficiently. And it's sometimes it's hard.

Unknown Speaker  27:50  
Sometimes I ever go at matron,

Unknown Speaker  27:53  
it's hard to stay silent. Sometimes I can imagine and tell her how efficient the bloody place is.

Unknown Speaker  28:02  
You know,

Unknown Speaker  28:05  
do you keep yourself busy?

Unknown Speaker  28:08  
Not really. It's surprising all the time.

Unknown Speaker  28:12  
I must say that

Unknown Speaker  28:15  
I'm not unhappy here, but, but if I was at home, I had, like I was at home for many, many years on my own,

Unknown Speaker  28:26  
I'd get a bit humpy even when you're on your own. So when I get humpy here, it's not because of here, it's just because it's, it's part of me, you know,

Unknown Speaker  28:40  
I've got a nice room.

Unknown Speaker  28:44  
Could I pay 140 pound a week? Yeah, that is a lot of money.

Unknown Speaker  28:50  
That's the maximum they're allowed to charge. That's fixed by the government being a registered charity here.

Unknown Speaker  28:59  
But

Unknown Speaker  29:02  
if your money runs out, you're never turned out. Because when you run, your runs out. You if you run, come down, you've only got your pension. Well,

Unknown Speaker  29:13  
you just pay them what you the pension, and they give you a few pound back, which is quite the majority of them, on that basis, if you're paying, what, 20 pounds a day, I think you have, I say, if you're paying 20 pounds a day, I think you have a right to point out any inefficiencies that you

Unknown Speaker  29:33  
see indeed.

Unknown Speaker  29:36  
So really, since 72 you haven't actively engaged in I've only ever did

Unknown Speaker  29:42  
when I was at home, I had somebody my name used to be in the directory, the film directory, as a cinematograph maintenance engineer.

Unknown Speaker  29:53  
They used to, I used to write and tell them to delete it, but they must have left it in. But I did have.

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
This one, one particular man, he bought an air flex 16 millimeter camera second hand, he was going to America. Would I Please check it over with him before he went? And I said, Yes, I would do it. But I said I did just not. Didn't want to get involved with invoices. I said it would just be a cash transaction, I think at the time a five, I don't know which was, wasn't bad in 1972

Unknown Speaker  30:29  
you see, it was only adjusted just to check it over with the collimator with the lenses. And somebody came on it. I never even saw the bloke. Somebody just came for it, and

Unknown Speaker  30:42  
so that was limited.

Unknown Speaker  30:45  
The end of your career, that's right. Tell me looking back, would you have done it differently? Have you been happy? You wouldn't you've been happy doing what you did. I think I've been very fortunate

Unknown Speaker  30:57  
do the way things have worked out. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  31:02  
yeah,

Unknown Speaker  31:04  
yes, you were

Unknown Speaker  31:06  
quite active some time ago on the camera committee. When I was secretary of the camera committee, he used to come along. Well, yes, that's right. Well, used to come along and

Unknown Speaker  31:22  
use the country pick quite well, yes, well, that's on the strength of that like I like I was made an honorary member, you know, not honorary my paid up member, like I'm an

Unknown Speaker  31:36  
honorary member of the BSC.

Unknown Speaker  31:41  
What's your feeling about ACTT what? What's your estimation of it and the people, I think it's a bit dicey at present,

Unknown Speaker  31:52  
in what way?

Unknown Speaker  31:54  
In what way would you say?

Unknown Speaker  31:57  
Well, such a lot of freelance

Unknown Speaker  32:01  
business is going and,

Unknown Speaker  32:06  
well, it's the permanently employed business that's going or has gone. It's there's still quite a lot of freelance but of course, not in major production. It's all small scale stuff, I think, isn't it? I was trying to remember the blokes name. He was down at

Unknown Speaker  32:24  
scrubs lane. He worked under me, and he's got his own business and 60 mill, 35 and I think he's doing very well. Yes. What about camera maintenance? Do

Unknown Speaker  32:36  
you mean or renting? Yeah. I

Unknown Speaker  32:40  
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  32:43  
yeah.

Unknown Speaker  32:45  
So the BBC used to come to me when I was at Samuelson, like via Sydney, because I think they had an arrangement where one debark department did the electrical and one did the well, you can't work that way.

Unknown Speaker  33:04  
Even though you're mechanical, you've got to do certain electrical things. And

Unknown Speaker  33:10  
you know, they used to come to see how

Unknown Speaker  33:14  
their turnover, their turnover of cameras, I think every time it came back, they used to strip it in pieces and all that sort of thing. Well, it's not necessary. So they used to come up and see how I did such a quick turnover, turn around,

Unknown Speaker  33:31  
see if you knew what to look for. You know, the focal depth, the which is the important part, like and cleanliness. You know, very sort of have trouble with films scratch. That's more or less a thing of the past.

Unknown Speaker  33:48  
Yes, I was going to say when I was freelancing and the Head to Heart camera always went to service. Always went to service, because I knew what if I can pick up a camera and go out straight away and shoot with it and be relaxed. That's it. See,

Unknown Speaker  34:07  
of course, I had a very, very, very good reputation, like, of course not now, because the the older ones as they've all all retired. You see,

Unknown Speaker  34:21  
you know,

Unknown Speaker  34:25  
I've always hated being called a perfectionist

Unknown Speaker  34:29  
because,

Unknown Speaker  34:31  
you know, it riles me to be called a perfectionist because what you're doing is trying to, normally, just try to do a job, right?

Unknown Speaker  34:42  
But that was there, and I used to that used to rile me, because you were only just doing a job as as it should be done. Who called you a perfectionist?

Unknown Speaker  34:55  
Not your customers?

Unknown Speaker  34:57  
Well, I've never heard the customer. No.

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
But to the say the customers,

Unknown Speaker  35:04  
when the Mitchell high speed camera came to us,

Unknown Speaker  35:09  
cameramen are very, very nervous on a new camera.

Unknown Speaker  35:14  
Now, when Sydney hired it out, if they were going to their Sydney would say to me, Vic, would you stop behind or come in on a Saturday afternoon to show them how to to use the camera,

Unknown Speaker  35:29  
which I used to do. And of course, it's through doing that you you won the confidence of the people who were using the cameras, and they knew they could rely on

Unknown Speaker  35:43  
focal depth and sharpness of lenses. You know

Unknown Speaker  35:47  
well, that kind of meticulous attention derives, may I presume, from your apprenticeship, when you were taught to do things rigorously and carefully.

Unknown Speaker  35:59  
They'll say when, when I worked at path is a native said I was a very good Turner, but as a fitter, I was no good. Well, eventually it was the that was the side which was all supreme, yeah, you know, in the end,

Unknown Speaker  36:19  
is it fair to say you regret the passing of those standards, of that kind of care. The standards are still pretty. They're still high. You think, Ah, well, that's good to hear. The cameras have improved

Unknown Speaker  36:32  
as well. You know, is it because they're more foolproof now? Do you think and more electronically based and mechanically manufactured to a higher standard of accuracy. Yes, you know,

Unknown Speaker  36:47  
do you think cameras like the the panel flex and the eight and do you think they're too clever, too sophisticated now, or do you think they are what a camera? Yes, I shouldn't think so. It's the only thing which is improved, really, is the electronics on it. That's what I mean. Do you think that's all they are made? They could, I wouldn't know now, but I think they're made so that if a unit fails, it can be immediately plugged in,

Unknown Speaker  37:17  
very quickly. I think that's true. Yes, it's modular in the sense yes, yes, but I do think that's superfluous to what a camera needs. Or do you think they are good things to have that sophistication in the electronic area? I would say, yes, yeah. I would say,

Unknown Speaker  37:35  
but the actual camera that I'm speaking now the Panavision cameras,

Unknown Speaker  37:43  
it hasn't really, the movement hasn't changed. It's still really essentially movement, except it's made smaller and lighter. And,

Unknown Speaker  37:54  
you know, this is still as very similar to the Mitchell Yes, because when I was working on the using them 3040, years old. And I think some of them now must be 6070, years old, still used every day. Yeah, no trouble,

Unknown Speaker  38:09  
yeah. And,

Unknown Speaker  38:12  
of course, the one thing that they've all aimed at, which is, is, is the quietness you see. And of course, the the Panavision cameras are very, very quiet

Unknown Speaker  38:26  
ARRIFLEX they've got the when I had the model cameras, of course, it there wasn't, it wasn't register pin camera that, but now it is, but because I think they have a certain amount of noise from them, and I see they advertise now

Unknown Speaker  38:42  
a mod, different model, which is supposed to be quieter than ever, and all that sort of thing, but,

Unknown Speaker  38:51  
but the film itself makes a noise anyway, because that's what kills off the things. And Everest, Did you know The Vincent Everest? No, I never had anything to do with that. That was killed off by the sound department, because when they tilted it down, it's just got noisy. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  39:11  
you mentioned Robert gotchuck A couple of times. Is there anything you'd like to add? Oh, Robert got Yeah, anything you'd like to add about him while we're talking?

Unknown Speaker  39:21  
Well, since he except that

Unknown Speaker  39:25  
he was on great friendly relations all the time. Sydney had the

Unknown Speaker  39:33  
agency,

Unknown Speaker  39:36  
you know, like and when he did die, I mean, it was really, real regret by Samuel stones and also myself, yes, when he died,

Unknown Speaker  39:48  
because

Unknown Speaker  39:50  
he was the Panavision powerhouse. He was,

Unknown Speaker  39:56  
what was his strength? Do you think was it in innovation?

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
Or was it in marketing, the business side,

Unknown Speaker  40:05  
I was told he first started off in having manufactured the, a very good anamorphic lens for the projectors. That's, that was his, how he came into it,

Unknown Speaker  40:20  
you know. And then he came in, into the camera side, and his cameras were

Unknown Speaker  40:26  
bits and pieces, which were bought from Mitchell at that time. And, you know, and the anamorphic lenses, sometimes at Sydney's, we'd have occasion to take them off. And we, we'd find a cook lenses in the in the basic lens with a cook lens. It wasn't all American, you know,

Unknown Speaker  40:45  
use, used anything which came along and

Unknown Speaker  40:50  
but again, there were, there was nobody doing any anamorphic,

Unknown Speaker  40:56  
anamorphic

Unknown Speaker  40:58  
pictures.

Unknown Speaker  41:00  
Cinema scope went out.

Unknown Speaker  41:04  
What about the wide gages? Were you impressed by 65 I had a lot to do with the 65 because, as they say, that phrase, they used to send them over.

Unknown Speaker  41:18  
But of course, they were awful, awful cameras to service 60 you have a 65 mil camera and then have super, it would be super para vision with an animal at 65 mil, right?

Unknown Speaker  41:35  
Because when any of these

Unknown Speaker  41:39  
at one time, like there was pictures galore, going Italy, Spain, anyway, all over the place, because as soon as they run into any trouble, like Sidney would phone up, and I know I'd have to go troubleshooting like,

Unknown Speaker  41:56  
which generally speaking was all right now and again, you ran into some awful nasty people. What was the biggest problem you ever faced on one of those locations?

Unknown Speaker  42:13  
Well, funnily enough, it was on the lot with this was 35 millimeter

Unknown Speaker  42:22  
on darling lily in Paris. They were using a

Unknown Speaker  42:27  
para vision camera, and

Unknown Speaker  42:31  
the processing was being they what they were sending the processing back to Los Angeles. And of

Unknown Speaker  42:38  
course, there was a certain delay in knowing what the rushes were with the reports and all that. And then, of course, they they reported very bad flicker, which they shot an awful lot. And of course they had to stop production immediately. At this particular time that Panavision camera had come direct from Los Angeles. But as we'd got the agency got joke said, Can you send Vic over to to check it? When I got over there,

Unknown Speaker  43:08  
an American Crew, and in the hotel room, the camera was in bit of bits on the bed. They got them. It was a reflex camera, and it shocked me. I thought, Oh God, what am I in for? But anyway, one of the little serrated they were using two serrated belts. One of the serrated belts had jumped and put the put the mirror out of sync with the movement, which you can't nobody could see until it was processed.

Unknown Speaker  43:42  
So

Unknown Speaker  43:44  
it was a bad belt, so like we had to cable over to Panavision to send another one over which they did and was it difficult to I did for this question when I got to read, because at the end of this tape, and.

Roy Fowler  0:07  
I was asking is, was that a difficult fault to identify, to track down? No, but

Speaker 1  0:15  
I had to take a stroboscope over to see to check it for sinking, because it was a question of, I will say, though it was an American camera, man, I forget his name, the crew was very, very nice. Quite a pleasure to this particular camera I'd never seen in my life before. Before I went the Panavision were on the phone to explain to me to do, what about certain things, which, anyway, that the American Crew remembered certain little bits which they'd taken off and but of course, we had to, they would. We have to sort of get it going. They were shooting all night with it. The camera ran. Just checked up the sinking with the with my stroboscope, they took me to the site, you know, where they were shooting the picture, and I stayed with them for about an hour. And then come, you know, came out

Roy Fowler  1:20  
of the cameramen you've met, who's the one that you've liked most and the one that you've liked the least? Jeffrey, who's Jeff? Yeah, Jeff on Yeah, yes, that you like most. Yeah, yeah. Why? Why did you like him especially well his work or his manner.

Speaker 1  1:45  
Usually, if I met the camera man at the studios, it was when they were in trouble. I never went to the studios unless they were having trouble. And of course, Jeff was more understanding. It. You know, like he wasn't sort of jumping down your throat as soon as you got there. He was a reasonable man to deal with, you know, which is very comforting when you're throat riding I'm about to say

Roy Fowler  2:24  
who was the most troublesome from your point of view,

Speaker 1  2:29  
the German, I'll forget his name now. He's still alive, Erwin. Erwin, Hillier. They were making a pitch picture at City sitar Tony, somebody Tony White was the operator, a well known producer who was working with Hillier. But anyway, I reckon the stuff was all out of focus that the whole lot of all Sydney got so Sidney said, he said, Vicky said, you're on your way to Rome. They was shooting in Sydney sitar. Well, always, very, very difficult. You never, you know, you're never able to obtain the negative, you know, that's usually locked away or miles away somewhere else. But the operator, the operator in city, guitar, he was having trouble with a mutual movement and getting very bad scratch while I was there somehow or other. It was, though it was nothing to do with me. He was, they were art. Wondered if I could help them, although it was nothing whatever to do with the thought which I took the gate out and I could see what it was and put it right for them. And, you know, they were very pleased. Well, I've got these. It was an anamorphic picture, but I wondered whether it was the anamorphic lens, which was, sometimes you get a bad anamorphic projector lens, which makes it look out of focus when it is not it's the lens on the projector, not the camera. But anyway, I wanted to be able to project the picture through without the anamorphic lens. So it went. They anyway through doing this little job for them. They they removed the lens and put a standard lens in for me, and when I projected it, I could see exactly what it was. And, you know, like I didn't think was there was sufficient light. It was a very long the long interior. Shot very low key. And of course, anyway, I thought that was the trouble, and I thank the operator for letting me see this well. When I had to report to the production people, they said they were holding a production meeting in the theater, and because they had old Erwin there, and he's this producer, because this this bro who get their names now they wanted to know like

Roy Fowler  5:42  
we're recording. Is it okay, right? Okay,

Speaker 1  5:46  
but the project is all everybody here in the theater. And then they got up and said, Now, Mr. Beck, they called upon me. What exactly have you found wrong? And what is the thought you know, like, put it fairly well. You go over there. First of all, as an engineer, you don't go, you know, but again, you end up in being a diplomat and all the rest of it, you see, well, I, you know, I said that they've been having an awful lot of trouble with this picture at it was an MGM picture less smart. Said they were on the phone, I will they stopped shooting and all the rest of it. Well, I got up and I said I didn't think there was enough light on there this because Erwin Hillier, he just roared like a bloody ball about this. And so so did his producer, or whoever it was. And anyway, they said, Look, I did reserve it. I said. I said, I am not a qualified camera. I am not a qualified lighting camera. Man, like before, I started telling them what I thought it was, you see, but anyway, I just told him what I thought, that's all I could do. But anyway, I come come home, and when I saw Desmond, maybe two or three weeks later, he said, he said, What did you do when you went over there? He said, he said, We never heard a Dicky bird ever since you went over there. Well, I saw Tony white afterwards, and I said, What? What happened? He said, Well, he said, they opened up, but at one stop shot, I don't know. Do

Roy Fowler  7:31  
you remember the name of the picture? Bernie chance. No

Speaker 2  7:36  
focus with this. Opened up.

Roy Fowler  7:45  
Do you think there are any areas that we haven't covered, or things that are in your mind that you'd like to say? Think

Unknown Speaker  7:53  
of some things afterwards, but

Roy Fowler  7:56  
anything now that you can think of, not really? No. I think in general, we've covered the areas that we should,

Unknown Speaker  8:11  
must go and do a Jimmy riddle. Okay,

Roy Fowler  8:13  
right? We're rolling. Well, how do we sum up what? What are your final words of wisdom to offer the future.

Speaker 1  8:26  
Well myself, I've been very, very pleased to have been associated with the cinema business all through my life. I think a certain amount of luck in some respects, how you drifted from one to the other, changing, you know, like I lost me pension when I packed up at ranks. But on the other hand, I joined Sydney and have traveled all over Europe, Denmark, Munich, Spain row, been to America two or three times, you know, which I would never have done if I'd have stayed at ranks. So I've been very, very pleased to have been working with the elite. The cameraman, uh, friendship, hell, how they've relied on me and the most the people who worked under me.

Roy Fowler  9:36  
Did you make your friends in the business? Or did you make your friends in the

Speaker 1  9:40  
business, or were a lot of number of friends, yeah,

Roy Fowler  9:44  
but in the business, not outside,

Speaker 1  9:48  
there was a BSc do Shepperton this last Sunday, I think Freddie Young was going to be the bloke in honored. But they they said they were going to lay some transport on. Well, I waited Sunday morning and nothing ever turned up. So I missed it like again, the like the tickets for honor remembers the ticket was free, otherwise it was 30 pounds a time, I think. But somebody failed to that's a shame do that, which I was a bit sorry about, yes, because I would have seen quite a lot of people who I knew, indeed,

Roy Fowler  10:38  
Jack Hillard was made remember of a CT about a month, I must

Speaker 1  10:44  
say, I like the new format of the

Roy Fowler  10:49  
magazine, of the journal, yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker  10:52  
Of very, very much better,

Roy Fowler  10:54  
yes. I think most of us prefer it no to that tabloid. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  10:58  
that's what I saw about leave. I saw it out Jack,

Roy Fowler  11:02  
but Freddie was there, and quite remarkable,

Speaker 1  11:07  
working, yes, you see, like Freddie, he's about your age, you know? Well, he's about four years older than me. Yes, yes, I know, like when we spoke, and he, you know, he said he's been in it just that little longer, and what I've, I've been in the business.

Roy Fowler  11:34  
Well. Thank you very much indeed, for a very interesting conversation being extremely rewarding. And

Speaker 1  11:43  
well, when I saw you last, what I had intended to do was to draft out certain things with different dates, but I never got round to doing it. And and of course, you arrived today, if

Roy Fowler  11:56  
you, if you do do that, and you find that we haven't covered certain areas or things, we'll be back again so we can easily catch up. Yes, good, okay, well, yeah, my thanks. Okay, there is one thing I would ask you.