Last updated at 12:51, Thursday, 08 January 2009

Margaret Crosby on a rare Whitehaven film unearthed after 50 years. PLUS: Our slide show featuring stills from the film and pictures from our archives

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FILM archivists are keen to get their hands on some old footage in 18mm format that has recently come to light, showing the early days of the Sekers factory in Whitehaven.

Produced by the Crown Film Unit in the 1940s, it shows the West Cumberland Silk Mills at their then new premises at Hensingham and Miki Sekers is pictured, with Lord Jack Adams.

Also featured are several young women weavers, busy working at the looms, a scene in the examining room, with Tomi DeGara (Miki’s cousin) and views of the outside of the building, which at one time had well-tended flower beds in it surrounds.

It seems the 60-year-old film was salvaged from a clear-out at the factory many years ago by Bert Jackson, who used to work at the Silk Mills as an electrician.

It has been passed on to Jack Rumney, 78, of School House Court, who was formerly chauffeur for Miki Sekers, and who in turn had passed it to his brother George for safekeeping.

A couple of months after the film was made it was shown at The Gaiety cinema at Tangier Street prior to the main feature and one of its ‘stars’, Brenda Whiteside (she is pictured centre right at the top of this page). At the time a Silk Mills weaver, remembers going to the pictures to see it being screened.

“It was a bit embarrassing really because I only appear in the film for a few seconds, and I think I ‘blinked and missed it’ but everyone else saw me and kept mentioning it to me, and I had to say I hadn’t seen myself!’’

Brenda, who was 21-year-old Brenda Proud at the time, has just celebrated her 80th birthday but clearly recalls the day the film crew arrived at the factory and being directed to “look natural’’ as she went about her work at the loom. “They picked out several girls to take part in the film and we were surprised and excited to be selected, but not as surprised as the local beauty Miss Silk Mills, who wasn’t!’’

The film, entitled This is Britain No 37, was one of those black and white post-war Ministry of Information films, usually screened before the main feature film, and aiming to inform and educate and show how Britain was once again prospering.

At one time Sekers used the basement of the old Hensingham school (later the premises of Gill and Rudd joiners) at Hensingham Square to train girls and teach them weaving skills. They kept a couple of looms in there for the purpose and there is film footage of the trainees, in their 40s style coats and headscarves arriving at the premises for work.

The Hungarian textile men, led by Miki Sekers (then N T Szereres, later to become Sir Nicholas Sekers), opened up their new silk mills at Hensingham, built by West Cumberland Industrial Development Company, 70 years ago, in December 1938.

Miss M Cornthwaite of Egremont supervised the trainees, whose Hungarian teachers were Frau Clara Poropszky, Fraulein Kato Hosszu and Fraulein Helena Kapoun. Fellow Hungarian Mr R Weber was the foreman at the factory.

Despite language difficulties, the skill of the weaver was passed on and the company grew to be a highly successful, leading West Cumbrian industry, at its peak employing several hundred people.

Brenda, who lives at Tivoli, Moresby, had joined the company as a girl of 14 during the war years when it was engaged in making parachute silk.

“There were about half a dozen of us girls, with four looms each. I started as a pirn winder (a pirn holds the thread that is inserted into the shuttle); you had to be 16 before you could go on to the looms. We worked shifts, first and back.

“I got five shillings a week when I started and the hours were 7.45am-4.30pm, Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings. Later, as a weaver, I was on piece work; you got paid so much a yard. Money was deducted for a fault in the fabric. It was very noisy in there, with the machinery, so you learnt how to lip-read, a skill I still have.’’

And how did she get on with her boss? “I thought Miki Sekers was unique, a very flamboyant character. He used to frighten a lot of people but I can’t say I was afraid of him.

“I used to weave the fabrics for Oliver Messel, the theatre designer, and I remember him and Miki standing over me while I wove a new design for them, using lurex. I recall it was silver with an acorn design. We made only dress fabrics then, some beautiful brocades, and there would sometimes be beautiful models at the factory, walking up and down wearing these fabulous dresses.’’

The Sekers name became synonymous in the world of fashion with the best in quality and luxury and the Sekers girls considered themselves “a cut above’’ their peers at Kangol and Edgards.

Brenda remembers too Peter de Gara, Tomi’s brother, who manufactured a range of baby clothes at the factory which were sold from Patsy Whites, an outlet in King Street.

Brenda met and married Charles Whiteside during her time at the Mills and left when she was 27 to have her first child, Dorothy.

Charles was a shift manager and in the mid 60s he and Brenda were invited to attend the wedding of the Sekers’ daughter, Christine, held at St Bartholomew The Great Church in London, followed by a reception in Claridges.

“It was a very posh do, attended by Lords and Ladies and Royalty (Princess Margaret) and the champagne, and brandy, flowed.’’

Brenda says they were busy but happy times spent at the Silk Mills and would love to get the chance to view the film footage she missed first time round!

The emergence of the film, which has no soundtrack, and is entitled This Is Britain No 37, is now of interest to the North West Film Archive, which covers five counties, including Cumbria.

The organisations’ Nick Gladden, who is acquisitions and documentation officer, says: “I would be keen to bring the film into the Archive so that we can undertake a full inspection and preserve this title in the collection.’’

The Archive were interested to hear that, besides showing the Sekers footage, there is also a section at the start of the film showing laboratory work relating to nuclear industries and a bit at the end showing huge queues at the opening up to the public of Longleat, Wiltshire, the ancestral home of the Marquis of Bath. Longleat was the first stately home to take this route, in 1949.

The Archive is holding a ‘roadshow’ event at Barrow Local Studies Library on the afternoon of January 29, and will be showing some of the old film footage it holds (but not the Sekers film) at an evening film show at the Roxy in Ulverston on the same day.

Jack Adams became Lord Adams of Ennerdale on January 1, 1949, recognising his achievements in bringing prosperity back to Cumberland after the depression of the 20s and 30s. It was against a background of 15,000 people in work and 18,000 unemployed in the area that he became secretary of the newly formed Cumberland Development Council.

Princess Margaret’s wedding dress was made from Sekers fabric.

First published at 15:40, Wednesday, 07 January 2009
Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk