Diamonds in brown paper - buffer girls film

Came across this on youtube, does anyone know more about it?

Its about the buffer girls from Sheffield, I have a feeling I saw bits of it at school, but i'm not sure.

Anyone?

(to find it just go to http://www.youtube.com and put diamonds in brown paper into the search box)

This was a film made locally for Channel 4...

"Diamonds in Brown Paper (1989)

16mm, 52 minutes

Directed by Jill Booth; produced by Bernadette Malloney for Sheffield Films for Channel 4

This dramatic film follows the lives of two young women in the industrial North from their shared experiences as factory workers in a Sheffield cutlery plant through the separate paths destiny has in store for them. Filmed on location in Sheffield, the drama features period sequences spanning the 1920s to the 1960s."

(From an American academic site.)

There was also a pamphlet with the same title associated with the film. I once was in a scriptwriting workshop led by Jill and we bump into each other every now and then in Sheffield.

Hugh

You can Google it also.

Just watched it...love it

brings back memories,my aunt was a buffer girl,she used to shout all the time due to the noise at work,the lasses used brown paper as aprons to stop the swarf getting in their clothes,years ago there was a book with the same title

Takes me back about 60 yrs when I used to go past their works on my way home from school somewhere near the Lyceum

I was fascinated because they also had brown paper cardboard tied round their legs probably for the same reason.

Their language was a little rough and it was said that no errand/delivery boy was safe from thier clutches something about washers on odd parts of their bodies.

hazel

My mum was also a buffer girl at viners,the bbc made a short film for play school showing how spoons were made and my mum was in it.I think it was through the square window.Ha ha

Brilliant! Another time, another place, eh?

most of the buffer girls I remember wore green smocks , brown paper wrapped around their legs and scarfs like turbins on their heads. They always seemed to be cracking jokes and laughing like drains.

I'm trying to get a copy of the film, Diamonds in Brown Paper,for my mum who'll be 84 in September. She used to be a packer in a cutlery firm called Thorntons in Owlerton. It was behind where the Crown pub is on a side street and I well remember her stories about the buffer girls. She said she never got tired of going into work cos they were a great bunch of women.

I've tried searching for it on DVD but so far nothing. Does anyone know if there is a Sheffield stockist or where I'd be able to get a copy.

Thanks in anticipation.

Mum worked at Viners in the early 1930's. inspecting the buffers work.

hiya

my mum worked at viners she was a buffer girl also,she started working there in 1930 and finally finished in 1971 to care for my dad before he died in 1972, there were names she would tell about ., she worked with her sister ann burgess mums name was edith white their maiden name was howarth and lived on bath street, some of the names she worked with were mr pat bohan, mr dennis appleyard,mrs rosie britten i think,bernard pitts further back into the 1940s were sisters ivy dodds,lu-lu dodds lu-lu was i think a war bride and went to america,then there was annie allibone i stiill have the menu for the celebration of her long service award ( 60years) mum got a few autographs of the people who were there. mum worked in the re-pro department,after she died in1973 i had a chance to see where she worked and i was really shocked at the conditions they worked in to think she had worked like that all those years i could hardly believe my eye's,people say buffer girls had a sense of humour they had to have to work in that place.when i was a youngster on bath street you could see the working girls all walking in twos and fours there were hundreds of them all walking towards the town hall on wellington street, viners was a way from any transport links.

My mother was a buffer girl.

She worked with Annie Allibone and all the other buffers in the Holloware buffing dpt at Viners.some of the other ladies and gents who worked with her was Rosie Burrill.Doris.?

Ada Goring.Dirk,Derek.Norah Bown.Stan French,I still have photos of some of them when they went on their annual outings.Can anyone else jog my memory and remind me of the names of the others.

I used to work in a different dept and when I went round to their dept you could hear them all singing or having a laugh at something,What a great bunch of women and men.Just remembered another name Chrissie?