Derby Telegraph’s Bygones features two Central News East reports on Christmas in Derby in the 1980s

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This month MACE’s development manager Emma Morley writes for Derby Telegraph’s Bygones supplement about two Central News East items that we have edited together of Derby Hospital Choir & Derby Youth Band performing a carol in December 1985 and a variety of shots of Christmas shoppers in the city in December 1983.

The montage begins with Derby Hospital Choir and Derby Youth Bank performing It Came Upon A Midnight Clear in the main hall at the Assembly Rooms, a video that was originally broadcast on Christmas Eve 1985 with scenes of children at Derby Children’s Hospital, scenes which have been removed for this montage.

There are close up shots of the hospital staff singing which MACE have edited to images of Christmas lights at The Spot in 1983 and shoppers in the Eagle Centre which include the shop signs of Kieran Mullin hairdressers which is still in the same spot now, and C&A which is now Poundland.

The scenes then move back to inside the Eagle Centre, near to where Sainsburys used to be, where a Christmas tree stands and a band play. The montage then cuts back to 1985 where we see female hospital staff singing. We then move back to 1983 at the market at the Eagle Centre and a fruit stall packed with apples, oranges and grapes plus shots of turkeys ready for purchase. Around one there is a tag which reads ‘Turkeys – From Our Own Farms’.

There are then scenes of Santa giving out packets of smarties to children in the Eagle Centre. This Santa is in complete costume including the headwear. He is sitting next to a pillar outside Ernest Jones jewellers. We then cut back to the market, then scenes of children with their smarties. The action then moves to an aeroplane where passengers embark for Spain to spend their Christmas holiday abroad. One passenger is carrying a giant Christmas cracker in a box. Inside the plane, passengers are enjoying a plastic cup of wine.

The montage then moves back to the Assembly Rooms in 1985 and the choir singing with shots of the Youth Band playing.

The scenes in 1983 were taken from a news report original broadcast on 22nd December 1983 in which Phil Bayles reported from Derby about that year’s Christmas shopping rush which had resulted in record takings for many shopping centres.

Were you in Derby Hospital Choir or Derby Youth Band in 1985?
Were you at the Assembly Rooms performing with Central News East were filming?
Do you have memories of Christmas shopping in the Eagle Centre and Market in the 1980s?

Email: Bygones@derbytelegraph.co.uk with your memories.