The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Just Billingham No. 3
The miracle of the weekly ICI wage packet in the quaint old days of paper and calculating machines and other topical tales brought to you by the Just Billingham cinemagazine.
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Overview
The jovial third edition of the Just Billingham cinemagazine doles out topical tales from ICI in the 1940s. Worker veterans raise a pint at Empire Day presentations in the Synthonia Club, which also hosts its first open sports day with 5,000 spectators welcoming world famous British runner Sydney Wooderson, nicknamed “The Mighty Atom”. To conclude, there’s a fascinating story on how the weekly wage packet reaches workers without the miracle of today’s computers.
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, and aimed at increasing employees’ knowledge of ICI’s activities. Rich in content and variety, they would have been screened after hours as part of film shows with ‘cartoons, shorts and on occasions, full length feature films’ in works’ canteens, Billingham’s Synthonia Club, theatres or local halls.
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