The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

92 THE CIKE-TECHNICIA.V July — August. 1 printer to start on Monday at £3 15s. Od". After weighing up the pros and cons he plumped for Olympic, started on the Mondaj and stayed there everal a ears. Syd always reckons that his time at Olympic was the happiest he has spent in the labs. He wasn't long there before he went on to night shift, and on night shift he stayed till he left. Skittivll did all he could to make the men happy at work and they all joined in with a will. They had a Sports Club, with cricket and football teams, and a recreal ion room attached to the lab. The lads were a very cheerful crowd and. as they could run their job to suit themselves, they always took time off on night shift to play a few games of tabletennis, darts, etc.. in the club room. The result \\ as that work went with a swing, and to make up for the time off they had taken they always made it a point each shift to do a few extra " conscience " reels over and above their regular quota. It's a wonder more bosses don't realise that much more work gets done if the men have some responsibility in their job and can work it the way that suits them best. Altogether it was a gay time for Syd: he'd finally taken the plunge and left his sisters to live in lodgings and he was liking it very much. He had good lodgings and many of his fellow lodgers were young Swiss students, sent over here by their fathers to polish up their English, who were out for a good time and were allowed plenty of money to spend. Syd, who by now was getting a share of the money sent over to the family by his brothers in America, used to go round with these lively lads, and a high old time they had, often finishing up sitting at the bar at Appenrodt's drinking lager. On one celebrated occasion they arrived home late and one of the students fell over in the hall, bringing to earth a large gong, which fetched down the landlady and left Syd to explain as best he could. Still, all good times must come to an end, and his was no exception. Syd's girl had decided that this gay life and living in lodgings was doing him no good, and she was pressing him to try for a rise so that tln\ could gel married. Syd was all in favour too, and quite determined on marriage, even though he expected trouble from the rest ol his family who were pretty strict in these things. So, knowing it was not much use to look for a rise where he was, he put in for a job at Humphries and collected one on the night shift breaking down rushes negative, at £4 10s. Od. a week, lie was sorrj to leave Olympic, as he'd always been happj working there, and he still thinks it had the be^t working atmosphere of any lab in those days. Bui now at any rate he could gel married, and within six months bis family, seeing that his wife was a sensible urirl with his best interests at heart, were quite reconciled and welcomed hei into their midst. Today, they have two little girls — Pamela and Norma, aged ten and seven respectively. But Humphries was a bit flat to work at after Olympic and it wasn't long before Syd was looking for another job. Denham Labs were just being built, so Syd got his name in quick and when they started up he went there at £5 a week in charge of printing. And at Denham he's been ever since. There was a certain amount of trouble before Denham began working smoothly, mainly through the inexperience of most of the original staff; but as they began to learn, and the completely hopeless were weeded out, things went better. Syd's had quite a run through the Denham departments: printing, then a spell on the optical printer, 16mm processing, a series of quite successful experiments on 16mm optical work, and finally, is now insert and titles cameraman and also L after the equipment for Denlab's own production unit. This development is a very welcome one for Syd. He's always had strong views on the present lack of interchange between lab and studio work and it's always been a point of his that lab worl should have the chance of moving over to studio work and that studio workers should have had spells in the lab. Not only would this give lab workers a chance of getting the better studio wages, but it would improve understanding and relationship all round, and Syd's very pleased to have made a start in that direction. He'd like to see much closer and more regular contact between studio and lab workers, with camera and sound crews and cutting room staff taking a much greater interest in what happens to their work in the labs; nowadays a lab worker seldom hears from them, unless a cameraman has mucked up a job and is hoping to have it rescued in the developing bath. Syd bad plenty of other ideas too for improving lab work and efficiency : for instance, he holds that the optical department should have its own separate processing plant, and their stuff, with its special requirements as to gamma and so on, should not have to take its chance with the of the footftge in the routine developing bath. But Syd's main interest always has been and still is in the working conditions of lab employees. He's bad years of night work and years of darkroom work, so he knows what he's talking about. People who have never tried it cannot realise what a strain on health and nerves constant mechanical work year after year in depressing conditions can be. It's bad enough to be on night shift, or in the dark-room, always to be working like a n or one of those subterranean fishes that have lost their eyes, in a half-human world of darkn but on top of that lab workers live in an atmosphere poisoned by all sorts of chemicals. That is why the working atmosphere, such as the going feeling at Olympic, can make so much difference to the health, happiness and effici.