THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DEPARTMENT

With reference to your request for people involved with publicity photographs to get in touch, I joined the BMC Film and Photographic Unit at Cowley in the mid-1960s. It was a very active department of about 20 people consisting of lab technicians, photographers and two artists (large exhibition prints were produced in black and white and then hand coloured). We had a large studio, plus a large purpose-built cinema with one staff member being employed as a projectionist and looking after the film library. These films could be hired free of charge.

You showed some pictures of cars crashing at MIRA, and we were involved with this. Cars were pulled along a tunnel on a linear motor, which released just before the car hit the block. In the early days it was a lot more basic, out on the field. Not far from the big banked circuit was a piece of track that had a right angle on it; a pulley was mounted there and a long cable was hitched on the back of an old Jaguar. The other end was connected to a heavily weighted dolly which was then pulled into the crash car. One amusing event happened when we crashed one car on Friday and Longbridge brought a Mini down for us to crash on Monday. When we arrived back, some very fit fellows had stripped the car over the weekend and carried the parts over the fields to the road, leaving just the shell.

The other vehicles we crashed were buses. This was done at the other establishment at Crowthorne where the buses were driven into the block by remote control. For those that might be interested, the vehicles were crashed at 30mph and the cameras we used were high speed rotary prism cameras which we usually ran at 1000 frames per second. Needless to say, 1000 feet of film went through in a few seconds. I can remember many times having the film inside my shirt to keep it warm, otherwise it would get brittle and thrash itself to pieces in the camera.

As the company changed through British Leyland, Leyland Cars etc. we took on the publicity pictures for Triumph, Jaguar and Rover cars. The job took us to many locations including abroad, especially for the rallies that the Comps Department entered.

Our department had a comprehensive negative library, recording the history of the plant. As time progressed other libraries within the company were sent to Cowley, throwing up interesting vehicles. How about the Wolseley Autogyro car, a two wheeled vehicle that inevitably was OK on a straight, but corners were a problem? I suppose we were very privileged to try out so many different vehicles. It also enabled us to work in many diverse places, such as the foundry where engine castings were produced and filming from the top of one of the Forth Bridge towers. We also had the privilege of working with and meeting many famous people. And did I mention the models? Yes there were many, some going on to work in film and on television. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it!

Incidentally, all the films and the negative library were transferred to the museum at Gaydon some years ago.