Paterson

In the UK at least the “king” of home darkroom products is Paterson. Sure there have been others. Johnsons and Photax spring to mind, both have come and gone. Perhaps AP Plastics more recently are a challenge. Paterson post war however, was THE name. In 1948 Donald Paterson was granted a patent for “a new way of loading 35mm film onto a reel”, two years later the company of Paterson was formed. When I was younger I had a copy of the catalogue and pursued it with envious eyes, all sorts of stuff my pocket money wouldn’t stretch too – but there were always birthdays! A week or so ago I happened to come across one of those catalogues in the bottom of a box of stuff, from August 1984.

The two pages above both show the “new” tanks. The catalogue I remember displayed the older ones that still prefer! Still use the film clips! What I did get and use were the chemicals, I certainly remember those plastic bottles with the massive lids! If an empty one came up on eBay I might even buy it for old times sake! I used their “Universal Developer” (FX26) and their fixer, stop bath was diluted vinegar. Later I graduated to Aculux (FX24) who’d have thought years later I’d be mixing my own FX55 – not me for sure.

Another Paterson event happened this week – I made an eBay purchase, the reasons for this will become clear in time… may I introduce the Paterson Thermo Drum sounds and looks a bit like a small nuclear device!

In other exciting news… apparently when doing the food shop online it’s important to specify SINGLE or BUNCH!

93 in case you were wondering!