If you thought that my ‘Mountain’ post ended abruptly that’s because when I’d finished typing, it was so long I decided to cut it in half… so here’s that second part. Peter and Aubrey were like chalk and cheese…. Peter was generally very talkative and would have a constant stream of information concerning new releases and up and coming advertising for their ‘MailMaster’ business. It’s only now that I realise just how quiet Aubrey was, I never heard his talk of his home life at all. We could see for ourselves just how succsessful the Mailmaster adverts were by the number of Post Office mail bags we would see on our way into the office! Danny, their 8mm manager admitted there was a large number of films returned, and 80% where just put back into stock without checking. Peter, like Derek, loved new gadgets and he was particularly fond his electronic letter opener, which he would continually feed with new mail and scrutinise its contents. He admitted to us that it had been purchased so he could open all the mail, taking out any cash and giving that to Aubrey. It seems that before Danny’s arrival some of the staff hadn’t been 100% honest. Peter was always very chatty and much of what was said was about how much they’d made over the week before or how he edited every film to an exact length, how he edited the American negs and then had copy negs made, in fact everything he did was done just to save one or two pence per 400′. Doesn’t sound very much but when you take into consideration that a popular 400′ like the ‘The Sound of Music’ or ‘The French Connection’ would sell possibly in the thousands, it would all add up to a considerable sum. He would refuse point blank to pay the labs for overly long leaders or tails. All reels would have no more than 18″ of leader and even less on its tail…. he was always looking for ways to increase their profits. It was Peter’s constant talk of all his 400′ reels having 300′ of film on them that gave Derek the impetus to follow his lead. We issued a number of titles with similar footage, but would eventually end up using the American standard for 400′ length, 330’/340′ as implimented by Ken Films. However saying all that they were highly successful with their mailorder business… Successful enough for Peter to buy a piece of land in the country and have an enourmous house drawn up to his personal whims by a top architect and built. Derek and I made the trip out there to see it, at Peter’s request. There was this large house in the centre of huge field with a muddy, winding drive leading to the front doors! The main lounge was colossal, and it’s kitchen was larger than most living rooms, and had a walk in larder, a double oven and a six ring hob and two separate microwaves, a vast double door American style fridge freezer complete with an ice making machine…. all very new to the UK at the time. Naturally there were several bathrooms, with the master bedroom having one at least 14′ square! Although he mentioned a son, he lived by himself and employed a woman to clean and cook for him and as far as can remember he didn’t own a projector of any kind! He said he didn’t bring his work home. It was a mansion, but didn’t feel lived in…. and wasn’t like a home! It took Derek many years to persude Peter to come to the Blackpool dinner at one of the Northern Film Collectors Conventions, he never spoke a word during that evenings meal and just slipped away during the film show. Around 2005 Adrian had answered a phonecall at the shop, it was Peter asking to speak to Derek, Adrian had recognised the voice immeadiately. Adrian said as soon as he’d said that Derek had passed away some yeras earlier, Peter just hung up!
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