This film shows additional footage for the film Craster Kippers, made at the premises of L. Robson and Sons, Craster, Northumberland world famous kipper producers. The film opens on an accidental piece of footage showing someone’s foot.  The film cuts to two men take a box of fish, which has L. Robson and Sons Printed on it, from the back of a flatbed lorry into a large work shed.  An open box shows kippers packed inside. A box is picked, and outside a workman holds the box showing the...

This film shows additional footage for the film Craster Kippers, made at the premises of L. Robson and Sons, Craster, Northumberland world famous kipper producers. The film opens on an accidental piece of footage showing someone’s foot.  The film cuts to two men take a box of fish, which has L. Robson and Sons Printed on it, from the back of a flatbed lorry into a large work shed.  An open box shows kippers packed inside. A box is picked, and outside a workman holds the box showing the contents for the camera.  A brief sequence of shaky footage is followed by a view of the quayside at Craster with three fishing boats on the shore.  The film cuts to two women at work in an office or store, one holding a sack open while the other puts parcels into it. A brief view shows Royal Mail van leaving the factory premises. The next sequence shows women workers removing the kippers from the poles used to hang over the burning wood chips.  They are then packed into wooden boxes.  A woman weighs on of the boxes on a machine, and adds a few more kippers to the contents. The film cuts to a blurred view of a workman tending to one of the piles of burning wood chips. In another part of the factory, a workman works next to a window making one of the small wooden boxes used for sending kippers by post. He has some ready cut pieces of wood nearby and puts the simple boxes together with a hammer and nails.  Another man packs kippers into one of these boxes, but lines the inside with paper and cellophane. The film moves on to the onsite shop where a woman wraps kippers for a customer using plain translucent paper and finishes off the parcel with newspaper.  Another woman works at bench at window putting a consignment of kippers into a wooden box. A very dark section follows with some over exposure in parts as workers take the kippers still on poles out of the smoke house, and hang them on a wooden rack. The film cuts to a workman using a metal sieve to gather up herring from a water tank and place them in a small wooden tub nearby.  A brief interlude shows the inside of a wooden roof and briefly the cameraman’s face, followed by a blank section. It then shows a work bench where herring are split open with a knife and then gutted. A blurred section shows women placing the gutted herring on poles for smoking. A change of angle brings the sequence into focus as the women carry the herring into the smoke house. A view follows outside as two men and a woman stand chatting, some others nearby including a woman carrying a parcel of recently purchased kippers wander off down the street. Next another view of the cold bench where herring mixed with ice wait to be processed.  The following views shows a piece of equipment which transfers herring onto another part of processing. The tails of the herring are placed in special clamps on a large rotating circular disc. At a certain point during its rotation the herring are automatically removed from the disc and are fed down a chute. The film cuts back to the bench where the fish are gutted, where three women are working.  The view changes to a worker putting herring onto the rotating disc seen earlier. A change of viewing angle shows the woman at work near the rotating disc, the two men walk across the room and pick up a wooden box filled with more fish for her to process. They place it on the pile of empty boxes next to her. An exterior view follows showing the door of a lorry belonging to the firm. Painted on the door is, ‘L. Robson & Sons Ltd. ‘Phone Embleton 223, Craster’. Accidental footage follows of a road surface, which then cuts to one of the fishing boats on the shore as fishermen unload boxes of fish.  An interior view of the smoke house follows as a man climbs a ladder to gain access to the kippers which have been curing in the wood smoke. The kippers are taken out of the smoke house and placed, still attached to poles onto a wooden frame. Closer views show the rich deep orange colour of the cured fish.  The film cuts to the sea washing up onto a rocky shoreline. Accidental footage shows a stone pavement and the cameraman’s feet.  Next, there follows a view of houses in the village from across the harbour.  The final section shows one of the small fishing boats out at sea, the final few second is indistinct, overexposed and blurred.