Narrated by British newsreader and commentator John Snagge OBE (1904–1996), Just Billingham No. 10 was part of a cine magazine series created by ICI’s Billingham Film Unit. Snagge broadcast his first football commentary in January 1927 when he reported on a match between Hull City and Stoke City for the BBC. He became one of BBC radio’s main announcers, his distinctive voice presenting commentaries for both the coronations of King George VI in 1937 and Queen Elizabeth II’s in 1953. When the...

Narrated by British newsreader and commentator John Snagge OBE (1904–1996), Just Billingham No. 10 was part of a cine magazine series created by ICI’s Billingham Film Unit. Snagge broadcast his first football commentary in January 1927 when he reported on a match between Hull City and Stoke City for the BBC. He became one of BBC radio’s main announcers, his distinctive voice presenting commentaries for both the coronations of King George VI in 1937 and Queen Elizabeth II’s in 1953. When the Second World War began, Snagge was enlisted to deliver important radio announcements, and, following D Day, nightly news from the Normandy beaches. John Snagge’s voice lent Just Billingham a sense of authority and familiarity in the 1940s. He later went on to deliver the BBC’s first television news bulletin in 1954. And, ironically, much later in 1980, his voice-over was used on punk band the Sex Pistols’ track (I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone and Julien Temple's wartime documentary parody "Punk Can Take It" (1979) - a theatrically released promo for the UK Subs.

The Just Billingham series is a cine magazine, also referred to as a screen magazine. The first recognised cine magazine format was the Kinemacolor Fashion Gazette in 1913, however the first true cine magazine as we recognise them today was the Pathé Pictorial, published from 1918-1969. The Just Billingham cine magazine was released circa 1945 and it concluded after twenty-seven issues in 1957. The genre itself was varied and it was made up of an amalgamation of styles including documentary, newsreel and travelogue. Due to this, the boundaries and precise parameters of the genre were blurred. The content ranged from interest-led and information-led short pieces to industrial and propagandist. The popular form of cine magazine covered light topics such as travel, sport, hobbies, animals, personalities, and fashion, whereas others such as the NCB’s Mining Review or ICI’s regional Just Billingham were sponsored by industry, rarely making it onto the screens of commercial cinemas, or government organisations dispersing national propaganda such as those by the Central Office of Information (COI, the successor to the War Time Ministry of Information), which served as a means to project positive images of Britain to audiences at home, the Commonwealth and America, and encourage international trade.

All records of the Billingham Film Unit disappeared as the company was wound up and the collection of films that remained were just a fraction of the Unit’s output. Most films had been produced for training purposes, though some were made for general viewing and historical posterity. Half of the collection is on 16 mm film and the rest on various formats of videotape. In 2003 the ICI collection was officially acquired by this archive.

ICI was founded in 1926 as the subsidiary of Brunner Mond, a leading chemical company in Britain that was one of the four companies that merged to create ICI. The core of the Billingham production during the 1920s was fertiliser but they started to produce plastics in 1934. During the Second World War there was a demand for supplies such as aviation spirit, sodium, chlorine, nylon, and plastics. The Billingham works became a major distributer of aviation spirit which led to the Billingham site peaking with 16,000 employees at one point, one of the largest chemical factories in the British Commonwealth at the time. By the mid-century, the earlier Billingham sites founded in the 1920s had to be demolished and rebuilt as they had been based on coal which was not economical. Not only that, but there was a major effect on the factory due to the change from naphtha to natural gas. During the 1970s, ICI divisions started to shrink. By the 1980s, most of the facilities from elsewhere were transferred to the factories in the North of England. However, throughout the 1990s, the Billingham plants were demolished or sold to other companies. The ICI interests were also sold from Wilton and North Tees. The company went on to have a very small operation unit in Teesside. Finally, on the 2nd of January, 2008, ICI ceased operations.

 During 1947, Britain was experiencing issued power cuts, as reported in the first of the short items in Just Billingham No. 10. Only those who were deemed ‘essential workers’, such as hospitals, were permitted full power while others had to work by candle light. The power cuts were caused by the extreme weather which expedited the coal crisis. Due to the severe weather, large drifts of snow blocked roads and railways which effected the transportation of coal to the electrical power stations. These conditions led to the closure of many power stations which forced the power consumption crisis to worsen, with new restrictions put in place to limit the usage of domestic electricity to nineteen hours per day. Note the news article featured in the film about women in fur coats joining the crowds collecting coal washed ashore at Roker Sands near Sunderland. The restrictions also cut some industrial supplies completely.

The media was also affected: radio broadcasts were limited, television services were suspended, some magazines were ordered to stop publishing, and newspapers were reduced in size. In the second item in this cine magazine on the distribution of the ICI magazine, there’s a reference to the shortage of paper, as well as their wartime record. The winter of 1947 had a lasting effect on British Industry: by the first month it was estimated that the yearly industrial output would be down by ten percent.

In reflection on the official data on occupational accidents and deaths, it was proven that there were fewer incidences in the chemical industry when compared to other large scale industries like coal mining or engineering in the early 1900s. Companies, such as Brunner Mond, implemented their own voluntary welfare measures by the end of the nineteenth century. Most of the measures operated by Brunner Mond were transferred to ICI when it was formed in 1926. In 1916, the Association of British Chemical Manufactures (ABCM) was formed with the means to enhance the image of the chemical manufacturing industry for the government, factory Inspectors, and other interested parties. The organisation brought the heads of the leading chemical firms in Britain together, and Brunner Mond was a part of this. ABCM started to produce their own “Model Safety Rules” in 1928 and they enhanced the industry’s public image in 1930. They achieved this by getting the chemical industry added to the British Engineering Standards Association (BESA), who were renamed as the British Standard Institution (BSI) following this. As time went on and employees fell ill, chemical companies maintained production by paying compensation to those who were injured or ill. Ultimately, companies were prioritising the business finance over employee well-being.

More Just Billingham editions at NEFA:

Just Billingham No. 3 (1946)

Just Billingham No. 15 (1947)

Just Billingham No. 22 (1950)

Just Billingham No. 27 (1957)

References:

Walker, D. (2008). Occupational health and safety in the British chemical industry, 1914-1974. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snagge

http://bufvc.ac.uk/newsonscreen

Hiley, Nicholas and McKerna Luke, Reconstructing the News: British Newsreel Documentation and the British Universities Newsreel Project Film History Vol. 13, No. 2, Non-Fiction Film (2001), pp. 185-199

Wheeler, John - The ICI Archive in the North East

https://www.ourwelwyngardencity.org.uk/content/topics/the_workplace/manufacturing/ici/ici-plastics

http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e56bb024e0624f5cbecc479995153e1e

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_1946%E2%80%9347_in_the_United_Kingdom