As the magazine grew and matured it attracted regular articles and reports from the likes of Barry Littlechild: His ‘Littlechild Report’ was witty and at the same time there was a little bite. Tony Shapps: Who had a regular two page feature devoted to Scope and 3D, entitled ‘Shappervescence’. David Oxland: Film Soundtracks. David Fulton, Tony Churcher, Edward J Laker, Phil Sheard: Whose love for Laurel and Hardy reached us in his column ‘Come Clean’. Barry Attwood: Current film reviews. Bryan Haynes: A film historian and his travels. Peter Haigh (who would supply the crossword puzzle from issue 40 onwards), Mark Silverster: Film related book reviews. John Bird: A Londoner’s thoughts and his day to day misadventures with film. There were numerous others including a number of customers who would supply ‘irregular’ columns including Tom Photiou: With his ‘Techy’ bit. Martyn Stribling, Stuart Reid, Tony Meadows, Graham Ritchie, Peter Wilson, John Bourne, Colin Tolman, Chip Gelmini, Steve Osbourne, to name just a few, they arrived from virtually all over the world. The German market was so big, that for a time that there was even a regular German language column from Michael Teubig. It was a long list, but without them there wouldn’t have been a magazine, a magazine that entertained and informed.
From the onset, 8mm manager, Mike Dimmock was put in charge of subscriptions, while the editing and designing was handled by our publicity manager Dave Worrall. Originally it was printed out professionally, and during that period we used a number of different printers, however I can only recall Veldonn Printers who where located in Kidderminster and are still in business today. Later it was decided to print it ‘in’ house when we upgraded our aging Gestetner offset printer to an AB. Dick, along with a new camera and plate making equipment that could produce near professional quality metal printing plates, (if you knew what you were doing). As I printed the monthly sales lists and newsletter, I was given this task as well, but I never felt that I had the skills to produce a quality magazine. It was a far cry from just pushing through a few thousand sheets of paper as flyers. Just the use of matt/gloss paper had its fair share of new problems, which would very often drive me to frustration and unbridled anger! Once printed the freshly printed pages were collected by a local firm, who collated and stapled them, this may have been Veldonn Printers.
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