Home > Farming > Archive Film     The Opening of the Colchester Oyster Fishery 1914 Film context by Philip Butcher East Anglian Film Archive This is a short newsreel item made as part of the cinema newsreel. At this time, just before the first World War, 20 million people a week were going to “the pictures”, to the cinema to see comedies, dramas, and a newsreel. There were several newsreel companies at that time, Pathe’s Animated Gazette, Warwick Bioscope Chronicle, Gaumont Graphic and others. Pathe’s Animated Gazette and Gaumont graphic were issued twice a week, one for Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, and a new edition for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Newsreels ran about five minutes, and contained short sequences of some event that the editor thought worth filming. One regular event was the opening of the oyster fishery season in Essex. Every year in September, the Mayor of Colchester and members of the corporation, accompanied by the members of the Colne Fishery Board, went on one of the oyster smacks (a sailing fishing boat) in the Pyefleet creek off Brightlingsea. The ceremony consists of the party sipping gin and eating gingerbread, a proclamation is read, then the Mayor hauls aboard the first dredge, and swallows the first oyster to come aboard. This event was regular covered by the film cameras of the cinema newsreels, and later by the film and video cameras of the television companies. This “diary” event nowadays is not considered so newsworthy as before, and it is seldom seen on our television as it once was.