The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

100 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN May 1954 the resignation of Captain Cope at the following meeting. GEORGE Elvin : Wall was at that time both Secretary of Equity and the L.T.C. Sid Cole : I think this stage is important because it is the first stage of growing up. It marked the acceptance of responsibility by the General Council. Reg Groves : What would you say was the next stage ? Ken Gordon : George Elvin was brought along by his brother and Thorold Dickinson. Sid Cole : Ken, Thorold, Harold and myself met in a coffee shop, quite undemocratically, to meet George Elvin and to present him to the General Council as General Secretary, for appointment. Harold Elvin : I met Thorold Dickinson and asked him how they were getting on, and he said badly, so I mentioned by brother, and Thorold asked me to bring him along. I took him along to a coffee shop and there was Sid Cole, Thorold Dickinson, Neil Brown, Ken Gordon, and one or two others. Sid Cole : You will realise this was the depression period. We had about 30 members, no money, and we owed three months' rent; and George jumped at it! Harold Elvin : When it looked likely they would appoint George, Ken Gordon said there was no money in the kitty, and Thorold Dickinson took out his wallet, laid a £5 note on the table and said, " the union has begun." Sid Cole : Cope resigned and left the meeting. After he had gone George was introduced to the meeting and the meeting took a decision to appoint him. Ken Gordon : The next day George and I were instructed to open a banking account with nothing. I don't know what happened to the fiver ! We went into Barclays Bank in Wardour Street, saw the Manager, and said " we wish to open an account for A.C.T." The next day we had the cheque books printed but we hadn't even got the money to pay for them. There were some hundreds of pounds put in within a fortnight from various sources. Ivor Montagu : In 1933, the first agreement was signed with Gaumont British. Sid Cole : That is very important because G.B. had a lot to do with forming A.C.T. Bill Allan : We started it. It was at the time that Hitler came into power. Stan Jolly and I had been talking it over for a long time and there had been several abortive attempts to start a Trade Union so we eventually decided that we would have a go. Stan Jolly had talked to Cope, who ran a " health and strength " cafe in Shepherds Bush market. Stan Jolly had had a talk with him and he had agreed. Apparently he was a man who had done this sort of thing before. He came round and we engaged him. " We " means Lyndon-Haynes, A. Crabtree, Stan Jolly, Ted Lloyd, Joan Boswell, Roy Kellino and others, I'm a little hazy about it. The first subs of 2/6d. were collected from those people. We got others together and took another lot of subs and then Cope ventured forth to a lot of Studios. Stan Jolly asked him if he would take the job of organiser — no pay at all. I will say this, whatever happened later, Cope did go round and he took the very rough end of the stick. He was thrown out of places, insulted, laughed at. We continued down there at Gaumont-British and then we were called into the office by Phil Samuels who said that any man who belonged to this thing by the end of the week was finished as far as GaumontBritish was concerned. We decided the only way we could keep going was to say we didn't belong, but to pay our 2/6d. in and let it go on underground. Captain Cope explained he couldn't get around to the Studios quickly enough, so we finally got together the money to buy him a Morris Oxford for £12. He had to spend some nights in country lanes because he couldn't get it to go; and to my mind he did do a very good job of work. We continued to pay our 2/6d. (1 was only getting about £3 5s. Od. in those days and I had a couple of kids). Then one day we were told there was to be a meeting at TRADE UNION ACTS, 1871 to -W+^r Certificate of U>tji*inj of Trad* Union. ,, ia bereby . (.jtifu.t| that ^ ri '<U>&ac catic^, ej ■ J-Coi^yLt c c^<,o Register No. j *? '■ tered undei th< Trade ' ruon Acts, 1871 to \lM7. this Af sC d»j of U YlA 19 3 3 • ( 'opy kept. / ( 'Aii / Registrar. 'I In certificate of registration, issued in Jnn; 1933