Published in Windlesora 13 (1994)
© WLHG
The club was first discussed in 1958 when my wife and I met with our friend Sam Young, a cine enthusiast from Clewer village, in our home at 178 Oxford Road. News of a club for the ordinary photographer soon spread and it was apparent that we had to look for premises. We found these at St Stephen’s Hall, Oxford Road, where the British Legion gave us our first home for a really small fee. The local theatre helped out with old props till we looked almost like a film unit. The British Legion became quite alarmed at the size of the club and in 1960 they asked us to move so as not to endanger their tenancy. By this time the club was named and had a committee of six, and thirty-five members each paying 2\6 a session.
As I was a coach driver, I was able to keep the club going by arranging outings to Lacock Abbey and other places of photographic interest. We also held evening meetings in the open, even in the winter, and these ended with a hot meal at the “Golden Fillet”, which stood where the Post Office is now in Peascod Street.
Eventually we held our meetings in the offices of the Ministry of Employment in Victoria Street but when they were demolished we moved to the Liberal Club. The growth in membership resulted in another move to the crypt under the Congregational Church in William Street. With eighty-nine members we had to call a halt to recruitment and redesigned the club into two sections, still and cine.
Many of the trades people in the town supported us, especially Stan Murphy of Murphy’s Gift Shop on Castle Hill and Edric Films in Eton High Street. We also received support from the Mayor, Councillor Dyason, the Lords Taverners and Mr. Colin Bance.
Eton College allowed us to film the chapel and grounds after Sunday service.
We documented the waterworks in Tangier Lane. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the mayor asked the club to film his sportsweek including a ball and floodlight session at the Home Park with the Queen and Prince Philip in attendance. In a flurry of action, lapel identification badges were designed and procured as well as new equipment. We approached Ilford Ltd through Mr. Murphy and were delighted to receive 100 cassettes of black and white film and some three miles of 8mm cine film as well as chemicals. During filming the event grew and there was a cavalcade of film stars and TV personalities parading in the streets, collecting for the Lords Taverners Playing Field Charity. We had to cover motor car rallies at Windsor Race Course, rugby and football matches in the Home Park, canoeing on the river and so much more. We became a top class club after so small a start and at the final shoot Sir Harry Secombe named me “Hasselblad Harry”. After some six months work we produced two full reels of film which was shown to a distinguished audience at the town hall and we sold many photographs. Unfortunately the film, photographs and badges were later stolen from our home while we were on holiday.
In the early 1970s we were approached by Miss Doris Mellor to make a photographic survey of Windsor. Two members, Ted Munday and Brian Shelton, volunteered and spent three whole days over a period of a fortnight making two or three pictures of all the important buildings in the town as directed by Miss Mellor. The pictures were pasted into albums which are now held by the Royal Borough Collection at the museum store in Tinkers Lane.
We also filmed the opening of Safari Park and at a private view we photographed the lions from only two or three feet away, and the day ended with some of the camera crew getting wet whilst filming the diving dolphins and the killer whale.
By this time my interest grew in another hobby, painting in watercolours and oils, and so my wife and I relinquished our positions at the camera club after 20 years and formed a new group, the Clewer Leisure Painters.
The club moved into Windsor Arts Centre, where they have their own darkroom, and became Windsor Photographic Group. They still keep one tradition of Clewer Camera Club and meet on Monday evenings.
Harry Graves
Chairman, Clewer Leisure Painters
Windsor Local History Group 