A Nottingham photographer creating a book as a homage to the 1960s film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is appealing for people to share their memories.
“This project started out as a labour of love which grew on me and took me back some 55 years to my youth”, says 72-year-old Ron Disney.
The photographer came up with the idea after seeing the 1960 film produced by Woodfall Film Productions and based on the novel of the same name by famous Nottingham writer Alan Sillitoe.
The films tells the story of a young Nottingham factory worker and is a kitchen sink drama echoing the experiences of many Nottingham people at the time.
The book will be titled Saturday Night Sunday Morning Then and Now and will include 23 freeze frame images of the filming locations in Nottingham in 1960 next to pictures of the same locations in 2014.
At the side of each image there will be a description of the location as it was in the 1960s and as it is now together with memories of Nottingham people who were living in the area when the film was made.
Ron says that it took months of research to find the locations.
“Angel Row librarians prepared some Ordnance Survey maps which helped me locate and measure the exact spot where cinematographer Freddie Francis stood when he shot the film,” he says.
Although Ron has read the book, he had not watched the film until recently.
After seeing a book on Leicestershire’s Great Central Railway with a similar now and then format he decided to do the equivalent for the film.
The semi-retired photographer now lives in Skegness but was born in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire and has lived in Clifton as well.
He says that as a teenager in the 1950s he grew up in the ‘teddy boy’ era and related to the film as he would have been similar age to the 21-year-old lead character in the film, Arthur Seaton.
“Lads of this era would work hard for five days and at the weekend drink hard and have an eye out for a girl. The outlook of Arthur Seaton was the norm,” he says.
He is appealing for people to make a contribution to his book and help be a part of documenting Nottingham’s history.
Ron has already spoken to people who worked at the Raleigh bike factory and who lived around the area. He has compiled their memories of meeting the cast of the film and their experiences of living near the factory in the sixties for inclusion in the book.
English actress and star of the film Shirley Ann Field who played Doreen is also willing to lend her support – something which Ron is extremely excited about.
The Nottingham enthusiast is hoping to launch the book with a screening of the film at the Savoy cinemas on Derby Road.
However Ron wants more people to share their memories of Nottingham and their lives around that period.
He is looking for anyone who lived on Salisbury Street or Beacon Fields Terrace or was employed at the Raleigh factory at the time of filming in the 1960s to get in touch.
The photographer is also looking for two people that bare a resemblance to actors Albert Finney and Shirley Anne Field, who starred in the film as Arthur Seaton and Doreen, to feature on the front cover of the book.
Anyone who would like to be involved should contact Ron via his landline 01754766587 or mobile 07752092576 or email him on [email protected]
