More recently (2014), Joseph Paglia has sent me the group photograph alongside. He says:

"It's my Aunt Ethel (Irene Agnes) Sennatt (with Glasses), who worked at the (Eucryl) Laboratory; I believe she was a manager. This photo' I would guess would be her with other employees, perhaps her team".

Ethel Sennatt was born 11/09/1908, "so judging her age in the photo' would place the date taken as sometime in the 1950s".

The chances are that David Goodall would have known Ethel, as she would have been at the Eucryl laboratory around much the same time that David was (between 1954 and 1956). I've recently tried to contact David to ask if he recalls Ethel (he might even be in this photograph), but he has not replied, so perhaps has changed his email address. If you read this David, do get back in touch with me.

There were four other laboratories in the country doing Pakolor printing; Caithness (Color Photos) Ltd, Kirkaldy, Fifeshire; Millscolor, Saddler Street, Durham, J.P.Roche & Co.Ltd, Lower O'Connell Street, Dublin and Wallis, Lindrum Ltd; 7a Buckingham Palace Road, London, S.W.1.

David cycled to and from work, some 5 miles each way, from the Sholing district in the east of Southampton, across the city centre to Shirley. In his journey he had to cross the River Itchen, using the 'chain ferry' known locally as 'the floating bridge'. Having crossed the river, David recalls the "long drag up to Shirley, all uphill !"

March 2007 when I visited Southampton; alongside are some of my own pictures.

The extreme left picture is a view looking east across the River Itchen near the Toll Bridge. The gates of the Southampton Water Activities Centre guard the western slip way of the old floating bridge chain ferry.

A section of chain on a sprocket wheel can be seen near the eastern slip way at Spitfire Quay, Hazel Rd. Unfortunately, there is no plaque to explain to visitors the reason for this unusual 'exhibit' and the other historic aspect of this part of Southampton..

The name Spitfire Quay in the above picture, and the use of the name Mitchell Close for the nearby road serving a new, small, housing development, is due to the area being the 'home' of the historic WW2 fighter plane named the 'Spitfire', developed by R.J.Mitchell.

David Goodall has sent me the picture (left) of The Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd., Hazel Road, where R.J.Mitchell designed the Spitfire during the mid-1930s; though David admits he probably took the shot because of the steam train running from Bittern to Woolston.

David adds "This, of course, is now a historic shot as the Works are no longer there.... everytime I travelled on the floating bridge I saw the Works".

David applied to United D&P Services to be a trainee laboratory technician and his first job, after very little training, was to process Pakolor colour prints. This entailed putting the exposed paper into plastic cages attached to a plastic frame, each frame having a mixture of different size containers catering for different size prints. This was done in almost total darkness, the safelight being very dense. There was a home made electric timer with a big face, painted white with luminous paint on the hands. The minutes and seconds painted on the face were also luminous. David could then see this well enough to move the baskets of prints suspended on rods into the solutions at the right time.

The processing was done in ex-submarine battery tanks because they had the required depth (around 50"). In their original use, such tanks provided an acid-proof enclosure against battery electrolyte leakage. Since electrolyte is highly corrosive sulphuric acid, leakage could seriously weaken the pressure hull of a submarine if it went undetected.

Tank 1 had wetting solution;  Tank 2 rinse;  Tank 3 developer (must be maintained at 68°F=20°C); Tank 4 rinse;  Tank 5 bleachfix;
Tank 6 wash;  Tank 7 stabiliser. Solutions could be between 64°F & 70°F, except the developer which had to be accurately maintained at 68°F = 20°C. Total processing time, including the final wash but not drying, was 58minutes.

The print baskets were suspended and carried manually from tank to tank after the appropriate amount of time in each solution. Then they were taken out to the finishing section for drying, using old style rotary drum dryers and glazers. Other staff dealt with this, including sorting and packing the finished prints.

Film processing was done in an adjacent wet room by a colleague and followed almost the same procedure as the print processing. This colleague, with David's assistance, also mixed the bulk powder chemicals, supplied whole sale from various sources. The resulting negatives were assessed for filtration and exposure in a daylight part of the lab, remote from the printing and processing area. This was done by a colleague named Chris White but occasionally, when problems arose, a Dr Jacobson visited from head office (in the mid-1950s Head Office would have been Associated British Pathe Ltd, Pathe House, Oxford St; London).

David recalls Dr Jacobson visiting to try and solve a problem of the white borders of the prints becoming discoloured during processing. After much scratching of heads and testing it was discoverd that the string threaded through the bottom of the print processing containers were becoming contaminated with the chemicals and contaminating the developer ! David also recalls United D&P having a duff batch of paper which was so biased to cyan that, no matter how you tried to correct it, you could not get a decent print. It must have been badly coated.

Both contact prints (from roll film negatives) and enlargements, 'en-prints', were available. Prices were 2/9d & 5/6d each respectively (14p & 28p) and quality was quite good for the time. Contact prints were produced using modified treadle operated contact printers working on the subtractive filtration process, while the en-print enlargements were made using conventional enlargers fitted with a turret beneath the lens with additive red, green and blue filters. There was also a correction filter built in beneath the light source. The power supply was stabilised from the mains.

David's wages in those days were only 2 pounds 10 shillings per week (£2.50p) so David couldn't afford to use much Pakolor himself, but he has one contact print, of his sister.

The blue version (left) is a 'straight' scan and the other is believed nearer to what the print should have looked like if correctly colour balanced.

David Goodall recalls that Kodacolor was a masked negative film, so the colour was so much better than Pakolor materials could provide. Fortunately United D&P thought David was worth retaining on the staff and so, together with an older employee, he dismantled the Pakolor equipment and was then transferred to the monochrome print enlarging room, where he finished his employment prior to being 'called up' for National Service*. Whilst working at United D&P David found all his fellow employees to be very friendly towards a young man in his first job.

Probably as a consequence of Kodak's film and automatic print processors taking over much of the UK colour print market from 1957, it seems that it wasn't just United D&P who stopped offering a Pakolor d&p service. By 1959, Pakolor film processing and printing had become the domain of a company called 'Photo Synthetics Ltd' located at 15 College Road, Epsom, Surrey, UK. Since this address is not far from what was the 'home' of Pakolor, at Church Road, Epsom, Surrey, there may have been a commercial link between the two.