Party time!
Throughout the year, photographers at the Photo Centre covered all manner of events from leek shows and weddings to car crashes and salmon fishing with the odd factory, fashion show and baby portrait thrown into the mix. No two weeks were the same and it would be difficult to guess what job would come in the following day.
One certainty, during the last few weeks of the old year and the first few weeks of the new, was that photographers would attend a huge array of Christmas parties and dinner dances held by the various employers throughout the town for their staff.
Jus-Rol Dinner at the Rum Puncheon, 1963.
Once David Smith had established himself as the town’s main commercial photographer, invitations to cover these events began to pour in. For Smith these invitations would offer two streams of income. Firstly, the photographs he took would be sent to local newspapers as they often reported in detail on social events. Secondly, those attending their works ‘do’ would likely wish to purchase a copy of their photograph for posterity.
These photographs offer us a regular glimpse into the social life of the population of Berwick. We see the change in fashion over the years. We also see the change in taste of the venues chosen by firms for their parties. In the early 1960s, the go to place was the Rum Puncheon in Golden Square, distinctive with its beamed ceiling and Bayeux Tapestry curtains. Other firms chose the Kings Arms Hotel, its staircase offered the perfect staging place for group portraits. Later in the decade Caesar’s Palace nightclub in Hide Hill was the centre of Berwick’s nightlife scene. As the name suggests it was decorated, like its Las Vegas counterpart, with a Romanesque theme, the walls adorned with large golden chariots. As the 1970s dawned the ballroom at Haggerston Castle became the vogue. With drink driving laws still a little lax to say the least, the fact that the venue was 7 miles from the town did not cause any great issue.
The template for covering these events didn’t seem to change over the years. A reasonably formal seated group portrait of the management and their partners came first, followed by the photographer taking a walk around the tables, photographing their occupants at varying stages of merriment, depending on what time the photographer had arrived to cover the event. In some cases, we also the see the dancing element of the dinner dance but it was mainly these table portraits which made up the coverage.
This small fragment of the collection illustrates just how much we can learn from a seemingly minor group of images. We can gather a list of the businesses operating in Berwick at the time and also how many people they employed. We see how ordinary fashion changed over a set period year on year. Researchers with other specialisms could also draw other details from the images depending on their field, party decorations, food and drink, musicians, you name it.
Our series of posts charting the history of the Photo Centre will resume in the new year. If you recognise any of the party goers in the photographs in this post do let us know!