"Joiner"
Richardson
The Blackhill Campaign
(Originally 16mm, b/w, 1,802 feet: 51 mins)
Filmed mainly on location between Autumn 1958 and Christmas 1963.
Private premiere, Scremerston Miners' Welfare Hall: June 1964.
Premiered, National Film Theatre, London, February 1964.
Narrator: George "Joiner" Richardson
Producer-Director-Editor: Jack Parsons
Photography: Gilbert Ingram, Joep Konigs, Julia James, Stephen Halliday, & Norman
Roundel
Contributions by: Dudley Buckle, Owen Carter, Terry Devereaux, Alice Ellis, Nick Faith,
John Hands, Fred Goodland, Viscount Lambton, MP, Hans Lobstein,
Peter de Normanville, & Paula Weldon .
With support from the British Film Institute, the BBC, Derrick Knight & Partners, Tyne-
Tees Television, Shell Film Unit, & The Berwick Advertiser
The film has now been fully restored from a 16mm release print owned by the
director – the only original copy known to survive. A new 16mm picture negative,
rerecorded optical sound negative, print and digital video master were made by
João Socrates de Oliveira of Prestech Film Laboratory Ltd. on behalf of the
Northern Region Film and Television Archive., of which Dr. Leo Enticknap is Curator.
Population Policy Press, Llantrisant, Pontyclun, RCT. CF72-8LQ.
Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1443 222255, Web page: popolpress.com,
Email: info @ popolpress.com
A proud and angry account of the fight put up by the
villagers.
Historians in a decade or so will be grateful to Mr Parsons.
This is documentary doing its true job, and doing it well.
(Philip Oakes. Sunday Telegraph, 19/1/64)
Jack Parsons' Blackhill Campaign seems to me a much more
powerful and real thing to give audiences than
the numbing second features
pumped out to satisfy the alleged appetite of British filmgoers for routine
dramas
(Penelope Gilliat. The Observer Weekend Review. 19/1/64)
The story told by the film
It is a moving account of the poignant events stemming from the National Coal
Board's abrupt 1958 decision to close 36 pits, including Blackhill in
Northumberland.
This led to a heroic battle by the Blackhill miners – fully supported by the citizens of Scremerston and Berwick-on-Tweed –
to save their
pit, their livelihoods, and their village, which could provide almost no other
jobs.
The combined forces of the NCB, the miners' union, and the government,
eventually proved too much for them and Blackhill was destroyed.
However,
nothing daunted, they went on to win a private licence to salvage and operate an
old drift mine, abandoned to flooding 50 years earlier.
The film was produced, written, directed and edited by
JP between 1958 and 1964. At its premiere at the National Film Theatre in London, it won some
quite respectable reviews, But after some 10
years on release things quietened down and JP heard little of it for three
decades.
Then, in autumn 2004, after a three and a half year search, Dr Leo Enticknap,
Director of
the Northern Region Film & TV Archive, finally tracked down its maker with the
only known surviving copy of the original 16mm version and this has now been
professionally conserved, remastered, and copied into this DVD format.
Making, preserving, and reproducing this film has taken many years of mainly
unpaid labour and a considerable amount of personal cash.
It is unlikely ever to
cover its costs so please don't make or circulate any more pirate copies.
(Large numbers of VHS copies were made from the original 16mm version. These
copies however are of extremely poor quality, whereas the new remastered DVD
version is much better all round)
Copyright remains with Jack Parsons and – in response to public demand – the
task of producing and marketing enough copies has been taken on by his small,
new, non-profit publishing house, Population Policy Press.
More original Blackhill reviews
'Told without affectation of any kind, this true tale of
incomprehension, bitterness, wisdom, and ultimate compromise ... The Blackhill
Campaign is informed by the slow and undeniable rhythm of truthfulness.'
(Michael Radcliffe. Films and Filming, March, 1964)
'Interesting and enjoyable ... a methodical
record of this whole campaign ... its success is due to the film-maker's own
deep concern ... which, from the start, involves the spectator, too.'
(David Robinson, ‘Sense of Purpose'. The Financial Times, 17/1/64)
'Jack Parsons -- who at present is a lecturer at Brunel College in London --
confesses himself as a "once for all" film-maker. His one incursion into cinema
was due to his desire to use the medium to record a specific event ... but
Blackhill Campaign was such a success ... at the NFT that he will find surely
find it difficult not to be drawn to further projects.'
(Cambridge Film Society report on the 1964 Film Festival)
'Dear Jack ... it's done, you have achieved a permanent and
... movng record of an incident in British history which certainly ought not to
have gone without documentation. I have no doubt that Blackhill will be even
more valuable in fifty years time than it is today. ...'
(Letter from Stanley Reed, Secretary, British Film Institute. 3/8/64)
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Last revised:
June 30, 2006