Pinewood SFX Oscar winners left to right: George Gibbs, John Stears, Kit West, Charles Staffel, Brian Johnson, Roy Field, Derek Meddings, Richard Conway.

Some time ago Peter Tyler came across a box of Black and White large format negatives from Charlie Staffel's old workshop at Pinewood, they seemed to be continuity stills from a large number of films made there.
Charles Staffel (above center) was involved with process photography including back projection and front projection.
His career spanned a good portion of the history of Pinewood Studios and and it seemed that he had accumulated also stills of most of the set designs and props needed for the productions he worked on. I have no reasoning for this but these stills provide a valuable insight into the history of set design and construction of the early years of the Studios.
The box contained brown envelopes with the negatives stored inside their individual waxed paper sleeves (standard practice even today). The problem was that the environment must have been damp for a good portion of their storage and the gum used in the waxed paper sleeves seems to have reacted with the celluloid and emulsion resulting in the bonding of the paper to the negatives that eventually distorted the celluloid structure. Peter tells me that after Charlie's death the workshop remained empty for a few years, during this period the sprinkler system went off and drenched the whole of the camera equipment and photographic collection that was stored there. The equipment had rusted beyond repair and of course a lot of Charlie's negatives were damaged. Apparently this box of negatives remained in the loft space above the sprinkler system and survived the drenching, but the dampness must have made a difference to their condition.
Many thanks to Peter Tyler for helping to save a small portion of film history.
Below is an example of a brown envelope that has been affected from this collection.