Ged Jones

Gary Watson’s first venture into the 8mm market was in the guise of ‘Nostaw’ Film Services which was his surname written backwards, where he started selling films from his parents home, in Chingford London. Later he began trading as Cinema Entertainment Company, soon shortened to just CEC. He struck a deal with D.C.R. to re-release…

Based in Kent, here was a unique 8mm library of sponsored films, from the likes of the BBC Enterprises, BTA, ICI, Vauxhall Motors, Castrol, Barclays Bank, RSPCA, The Post Office and British Transport Films, with many available on free loan.  There was also an entertaiment section available to hire at the usual rates.    

This company was established as Arrowtabs for a number of years before it secured the WB cartoons from Techno Films and soon Arrow became a familiar name to the super 8

Business based in Northampton who had been selling and hiring equipment for some time, although the Super 8 library didn’t appear until  1975. I haven’t been able to gather any further information…so once more their adverts must do the talking.

One of the small handful of independent 16mm film libraries, in the UK. If I remember correctly  it  was run by Tom Kenny and situated in Glasgow.  From the only advert I could find he was more than just a library as there was also a large range of 8mm projectors,  cameras and other equipment…

Classic Home Cinema was set up in 1988, upon my moving to my home town in Lincolnshire. Derek at Derann was very supportive as I had been in the habit of loaning him product to produce some of his, and later our joint releases. He allowed me to place an advert leaflet on all the…

Originally run by professional cinematographer, John Burgoyne Johnson. The ground floor was filled with 8 and 16mm movies for sale, while the upper story was a projection room with loads of cinema items. I’m led to understand that on most Saturdays he put on film shows. One show was from a 28mm movie! John’s equipment…

Run by Ron Window, this company had a catalogue of Gaumont British Newsreels, Steam locomotive films along with a collection of 200′ silent Laurel and Hardy, and Chaplin films. They would later set the market on fire with extracts from two Mary Millington films as well as importing many titles from Techno Film of Italy.

With their headquaters at Pinewood Studios, former film producer George Davis and business partner Terry Lens issued a vast selection of titles beginning in 1977. Taking the sleepy  UK by surprise with the super 8 feature ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ they bombarded the country with title after title including ‘Tintorea’, ‘The Slipper and the Rose’,…

Operated by Terry Nunn this popular mail order retailer was operating from the late 1960s, their catalogue was filled with silent classics, both comedy shorts and dramatic features. The catalogue included classics such as ‘Trip to the Moon’ (1902), ‘The Gold Rush’ (1925), ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (1925), ‘Metropolis’ (1926), ‘The Vampire Bat’ (1933), ‘White Zombie’ (1932)…