Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 19714 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
OPENING OF DENTON BURN CO-OP | 1965 | 1965-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 4 mins 53 secs Credits: Organisations: Dorian Film Productions Ltd. Genre: Sponsored Subject: Urban Life |
Summary A record for the Newcastle Co-operative Society of the official opening of the Denton Burn Co-operative self-service supermarket on West Road. A small crowd attend the ceremony and browse the fully stocked food aisles of the new store. This was probably a conversion of a Co-op store in the original 1930s building. |
Description
A record for the Newcastle Co-operative Society of the official opening of the Denton Burn Co-operative self-service supermarket on West Road. A small crowd attend the ceremony and browse the fully stocked food aisles of the new store. This was probably a conversion of a Co-op store in the original 1930s building.
The film opens with an exterior shot of the Denton Burn supermarket of the Newcastle Co-operative Society. The clock reads 2:50pm. A small crowd of men and women wait to gain...
A record for the Newcastle Co-operative Society of the official opening of the Denton Burn Co-operative self-service supermarket on West Road. A small crowd attend the ceremony and browse the fully stocked food aisles of the new store. This was probably a conversion of a Co-op store in the original 1930s building.
The film opens with an exterior shot of the Denton Burn supermarket of the Newcastle Co-operative Society. The clock reads 2:50pm. A small crowd of men and women wait to gain admittance. There's a close-up of the Co-operative sign.
Members of the Board of Management – Mr J H Yeats (Chairman) and Mr J M Sanderson - make a formal speech at the entrance to the store. A photographer takes pictures. The doors are officially opened and the crowd flood in, many of them women.
Inside the store, there are more speeches by representatives of the Board, and a bouquet is presented by one of the shop assistants who is then introduced to the crowd at the microphone. Patient shoppers line the aisles.
Various shots follow of the self-service food store as local shoppers wander around the new facilities – grocery aisles of canned vegetables, canned peas, canned beans, giant freezers, the butchers' counter, the delicatessen counter. One of the management board lights up his pipe in the shop. Close-up of the meat hanging from hooks in a row. Board members chat to the butchers. Three women customers have a chat beside the shelves of chocolate. There are shots of the well-stocked shelves of food. Assistants stand behind one of the food counters. A father wanders down an aisle with his children. [Accidental extreme close-up of a man's face.]
Context
A self-service ‘People’s Store’
Self-service is still a novelty to the curious crowd at the opening of a re-vamped Co-operative store in Newcastle.
There’s still a sense of wonder for the 60s suburban Denton Burn crowd ogling shelves a-plenty at the opening of a self-service store for the Co-operative Wholesale Society in Newcastle. No doubt the film cameras added to the excitement, but this was after all a post-war British shopping revolution in the making.
The Co-op was in the vanguard...
A self-service ‘People’s Store’
Self-service is still a novelty to the curious crowd at the opening of a re-vamped Co-operative store in Newcastle. There’s still a sense of wonder for the 60s suburban Denton Burn crowd ogling shelves a-plenty at the opening of a self-service store for the Co-operative Wholesale Society in Newcastle. No doubt the film cameras added to the excitement, but this was after all a post-war British shopping revolution in the making. The Co-op was in the vanguard of the self-service and supermarket trend in Britain (actually the brainchild of Clarence Saunders, founder of the American Piggly Wiggly grocery chain). The Newcastle Society lagged behind London branches: Romford got one in 1942 as a response to wartime staff shortages. But it was one of the first traders in Newcastle to convert stores into self-service. The re-fit of this grand 1930s West Road shop in Denton Burn was announced at a members meeting in 1955. Once rationing ended in 1954 self-service supermarkets slowly caught on, but for a while ‘the hostess’ guided customers around these bewildering new environments and cajoled them into using wire baskets. |