Just Billingham No. 7

A cheery report on the successful Synthonia Club rugby team, ICI blood donors, and an irritable bus queue in Billingham.

The jovial Just Billingham series for ICI workers settles into its amusing and informative post-war groove. This edition boasts gloriously lively images of sporty exercise and scrums as the Synthonia Club Rugby Section, a force in Durham County Rugby Union after World War Two, prepares for a winning match against Darlington RA. ‘Incidentally girls, this sort of thing isn’t bad for the waistline.’

Also featured, volunteer ICI workers take time out to donate a pint of blood soon after the peacetime launch of the National Blood Transfusion Service. And a topical transport tale stages a tongue-in-cheek visual skit on the very British art of complaining across the class divide as Billingham workers queue for a Stockton and Middlesbrough Corporation bus. Just Billingham was the earlier of two internal relations cinemagazine titles produced by ICI, the other called Panorama, a format first popularised by the Pathe Pictorial in 1918. Twenty seven issues were released from 1946 to 1960 covering all aspects of the company including sporting and social events.