Bill Whittemore

Bill Whittemore spent his working life in the film labs, when the labs were at the heart of film production, and labs members were the industrial heart of BECTU's predecessor union the ACTT (Association of Cinematograph Television and allied Technicians).

Bill was born in 1927 in north London.

He left school in 1941 with the country at war, and soon found himself at Brent Film Lab in Cricklewood, learning the ropes as a developer. He was still there when he was called up. While he was stationed in Germany, immediately after the war, he saw his first colour films and was smitten.

His job at Brent was kept open for him when he left the army, and he threw himself into union work and took over as shop steward.

But Brent was a black & white operation and the lure of colour persisted. His chance came in the late 1940s when George Humphries opened a new lab in Whitfield Street in the West End, processing both black & white and colour film. Bill was an experienced developer and Humphries snapped him up.

And there he worked for nearly 40 years.

Humphries had several labs but Whitfield Street was its main operation. Bill was ACTT shop steward and when he finally married,

it was to another shop steward, Maisie.

These were years of union strength in the labs. The ACTT had a closed shop and a national agreement with the labs' employers' association, and when national negotiations were under way, thousands of members would gather - the Hammersmith Odeon was a favourite venue - to hear reports and take votes.

For years labs workers achieved steady improvements in pay and working conditions, and a trained and skilled workforce.

By the 1980s, however, both technology and political circumstances were changing.

Humphries hit hard times and in 1984 it closed. Bill was in his late 50s. He was made redundant, and never worked again.

However he kept up his union membership and always paid his dues. For many years he acted as secretary to the Labs Committee, and until the early 2000s he was a regular presence at the union's annual conference, often accompanied by Dennis Claridge, another labs stalwart from Technicolor.

As his health deteriorated Bill had to drop out of union activity, but he still held on fiercely to his union membership, even when he had to move into a care-home.

He passed away quietly on 20 August 2018.

Martin Spence

(Much of the information in this obituary derives from an interview with Bill conducted by the British Entertainment History Project in 2015.