I have recently come across this site and think I may have something of interest to share . My late father had over the years taken many a home movie of the family. As the family got older he carried on his interest by filming little snipits around the town. Sadly he died before he made an epic movie out of this. But there are some clips of around the town. Some of which I will try to list below.

A shot of the main street looking towards doggarts with all the traffic going past including an old lockeys bus.

Shots of the area where the newgate shopping centre now stands just as the streets were being demolished.

The market place as it was with all the stalls in the middle on market day .

Shots of the bus stands in the market place with all the old lockeys and ok signs on posts red and gold if I remember correctly

There are others and I will try to organise some way to transfer these to be viewable online if anybody shows interest

They are all colour but without sound. mostly around the early to mid 1970s I think.

Thanks
Mike

I would be very interested to see these. Are they still on film or have you had them transferred to DVD - if so, it should be fairly easy to put them on YouTube or similar. On the other hand you might want to recover your expenses by selling copies of the DVD since you own the copyright. It's a bit of a niche market but I would fork out a fiver for a copy and no doubt others would too.

Thanks for the interest Mark. I have I think all the films my father made over the years on my computer. I can edit and publish this to DVD or as avi files etc.There are however clips all over the place interlaced with family shots. I would need to extract all the best bits to create a colletion of bits. Im a little worried about the quality as over the years the originals were copied to video then dvd and then the computer. Maybe im used to this modern world of high resolution , high definition etc. but they dont seem as bright and sharp as when my father used to show them on his projector screen. Had not even thought about how to allow people to see the clips. Im not that computer literate but my son is and maybe he will help me to create a web page I could direct people to and allow them to view the film. As soon as I have the info and help I need I`ll post something here

Michael,

You are probably right about the clips not being as good as they were on your dad's projector. The original film will have contained very high quality images - basically the quality was only limited by the grain size of the emulsion. I'm no photographic expert but basically, provided a picture is in focus, you can keep zooming in more and more and see more and more detail until you get down to the microscopic size of the grains.

When the film was copied to video (presumably VHS) the image had to be squeezed onto about 240 lines (i.e. under half the number used for normal TV transmissions -which is why VHS videos always looked a bit fuzzy). Then each time you play your VHS cassette the tape wears out very very slightly so the picture gets slightly worse.

When the tapes were digitised there may have been further loss of resolution due to compression and despite the fact that normally digital copies have higher definition than VHS, this can actually make the final image appear worse as it can sharpen up the fact that the VHS source wasn't very good.

If you still have the original films, it might be worth having them directly transferred to DVD as that would give you a lot of the quality back.

You might also check whether the Northern Region Film and Television Archive are interested in your films as they will give you a free copy of any donations they accept - see [www.nrfta.org.uk]

Hope this helps.

Micheal,

Facinating to hear you have some old shots taken by your father of Bishop Auckland.
As you are aware not a lot of film of old Bishop excists and for you to have some and in colour it's like gold.
Fare play to your father for doing this although his intention was probably not for a historical reason he may have captured some of the old town before it vanished.
As Mark has said in a previous e-mail you have something that people will pay for, you have the copy right and I as I'm sure many more will be willing to pay to have a copy.
As for copying the original so you keep the quality, Maplins Electrical have a 35mm film and slide scanner which converts your film I assume to electrical format.
As I have said you have something here which is rare and will have a great interest to us local historians.
Please keep us informed as to how you get on.

Thanks for the interest Gavin,
I have just uploaded some film to youtube for all to look at.Hope its of interest to at least somebody out there.
Try the address :[uk.youtube.com]
if not search on youtube for around the town bishop auckland.
BEST VIEWED IN HIGH QUALITY SETTING.

Thanks
Mike



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 01/29/09 01:08AM by michaelrobson142.

That was great. Thank you for sharing. If you do a dvd please let me know. Mary

Thank you Mary,
It's nice to know somebody enjoyed the clips.
The dvd idea is something I havent realy thought too much about. Im not sure how I would be able to distribute them or how much interest there would be. However Im not ruling it out. I'll keep things posted on this site.

Thanks
Mike

Thanks. Some great historical footage. The clips obviously span a fair number of years. I left Bishop in 1976 long before the Newgate Centre and the new road were started. I'm fairly sure that Tenters St was still fairly intact at that point - the railway still went under the bridge even if it was just one track which came to an end just by Vinovium House and the Odeon was still open having been twinned 3 years earlier.[www.mawgrim.co.uk]

The market place shots bring back memories. Is one of the views up Fore Bondgate ?
I had a paper round with Butterfields (?) near the Bay Horse in the early 70s - Bay Horse - Sun Inn - up High Bondgate - West Road - Hexham Street - back down the other side of High Bondgate to the shop to pick up another full bag which was for Bridge Street - Lower Bridge Street and back up Newton Cap Bank where several of the deliveries were to the outside netties at the backs.

I didn't know that OK Buses ran a service to Catterick Camp. It was renamed Catterick Garrison in 1973 and I'm sure that by then you had to go to Darlington and get a United 27 or 28. The back view of the United bus is interesting as it has a 1970 Ayrshire registration - until United was incorporated into the National Bus Company in 1969, I'm pretty sure that all their buses had Darlington HN registrations which continued for some years until buses started to get transferred in from other companies. The bus and several others are in the standard National brick red as opposed to United's darker red which can be seen on one of the single deckers in the market place. All in all, I think the market place shots are sometime around 1972/73.

The shots of the cars at the traffic lights (the only traffic lights I can remember were at Cabin Gate but maybe I'm wrong ) are later on. The first car looks like a Chrysler Alpine which came out around 1976.

I'm having difficulty identifying some of the locations but maybe someone else can help out.

Thanks again for an enjoyable view of Bishop in the 70s/80s.

Mike, I've just watched your compilation on Youtube. I enjoyed it SO much! All of it so familiar. It just shows how valuable it is in years to come when relatively mundane sights are filmed. Living in Princes Street I vividly remember Bob Hardisty Drive under construction. I remember the day it was officially opened, the councillor cut the ribbon just at the crossing points round from Cable's. A posse of little lads including my brother biked up the road towards the Vinovium House as fast as they could just to say they'd been on the road first.
Did anyone else think the traffic was so busy up and down Newgate Street and through the market place that it's a wonder buses and lorries weren't flattening pedestrians at every turn! I do remember a bus going over someone's foot once just outside the shoe shop on the corner ( now Claire's Accessories) where the pavement levelled as it met the road.
Thankyou Mike for making those clips available to all.