Just Billingham No. 27

Boy’s own adventures and failed engine drivers mastering model railways feature in a glorious Kodachrome swansong for the Just Billingham cinemagazine.

There’s so much more to ICI than chemicals as this beautifully constructed cinemagazine demonstrates. The last Just Billingham edition signs out with a snapshot of trainspotters at Darlington station and the “failed engine drivers” with a passion for crafting model railways. In a second feature, the Commondale moors are alight with a painterly autumn glow as Billingham boys “learn to be tough men” round the campfire and on outward bound adventures.

The model-makers were filmed at the Teesside Society of Model & Experimental Engineers, based at the Elmwood Community Centre in Hartburn, Stockton on Tees, and founded in 1948, the area long a stronghold for engineering. ICI Billingham had one of the largest engineering workshops in the country, which harboured a few enthusiastic model railway hobbyists too. The first feature also includes a delightful homage to Stockton-on-Tees born comic actor Will Hay, who played a bumbling railway porter and station master in the classic 1937 British comedy Oh, Mr Porter.