Bellamy on Beer

Taking advantage of the popularity of botanist David Bellamy – whose series 'Bellamy's Backyard Safari' began on the BBC the previous year ¬– Hartlepool brewers Cameron enlist his prestige to promote their beers. Deploying his usual avuncular style, Bellamy joins his fellow Durham locals in the Spotted Cow at Elwick, and provides a better than usual run through of how beer is made, although skipping the bit between fermentation and the beer ending up in a keg.

This film was made by Newcastle film producers Turners, which started as a chemist before its founder, Jack Turner, started selling cameras in 1932, and after the war making industrial and educational films through to 1995. Camerons had been acquired by Ellerman Lines in 1975, bought by the Barclay Brothers in 1983, passing on to Brent Walker in 1989, then to Wolverhampton & Dudley in 1991, and finally, in 2002, to Castle Eden Brewery owner David Soley. In 1981 Camerons would still have had a large clientele working in the nearby mines, shipyards and steelworks. Not so now. Also, at one time Camerons had 750 tied pubs, and what was left of these were placed by Brent Walker into a separate company called Pubmaster.