Learning on ScreenEGG MAN
Series
- Series Name
- Mining Review 18th Year
Issue
Story
- Story No. within this Issue
- 2 / 4
- Summary
- BFI synopsis: a Durham miner who paints eggs.
NCB Commentary - This is a hard-boiled story.
And it starts at Blaydon-on-Tyne, County Durham with Mrs Craig buying five dozen eggs. Then she steps carefully home and pops them into the pan. And in less time than it takes the poor old hen to lay one - the eggs are ready; but they’re not for eating, or throwing, come to that.
Jack Craig started painting on eggs over fifteen years ago. Each egg picture takes him about two hours to do, but he works on four or five at a time, while the paint dries on each.
You can study Jack’s collection in a neat catalogue.
Jack is a salvage worker at County Durham’s Stanley Burn Drift.
His mates at the colliery - keep slipping him bits of paper with commissions for egg paintings. He gets orders when he’s under the shower. He even gets them in his pay packet. Jack charges three shillings per painting per egg. He’s recently exported two eggs to Japan.
The Hard Day’s Night Boys on a Hard Boiled Egg - and like their hair there’s a lot more round the side.
Jack has other talents for sketching and painting.
Some days he’s off on his bike with easel and paints into the quite countryside near his home. Jack has exhibited his ‘flat’ paintings at art exhibitions in the north of England. But all the time egg commissions keep coming in; sometimes he does an on-the-spot sketch, marking-on the colours, before transferring it onto a hard-boiled egg.
Jack’s egg art makes a nice change from the usual marks you get on eggs - and people keep Jack’s eggs around the house forever! - Keywords
- Food and cooking; Arts and crafts; Mining
- Written sources
- British Film Institute Databases Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32 /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963
- Credits:
-
- Sponsor
- National Coal Board
- Production Co.
- National Coal Board Film Unit
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