June 25, 1922 - Oct 22, 1981
59 years old

INTERNATIONAL STEREOSCOPIC UNION LOSES A FOUNDER

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Don Jeater died on 20th October 1981. Don was a founder member of the International Stereoscopic Union and, until overtaken by his last illness, was President of the ISU and Editor of its publication "Stereoscopy".

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He was a man of man interests and hobbies, but stereoscopy in all its forms was a lifetime enthusiasm. He was a familiar figure at conventions and meetings in the U.K. and Europe, but many more knew him through his steady flow of articles and letters on stereoscopy in amateur and commercial publications. This enthusiasm never flagged and although he knew the outcome of his last illness at the outset, he maintained a lively correspondence with a large circle of stereo friends as long as he could use a pen. 

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Don will be missed wherever stereoscopists get together and we shall be the poorer without him.

                                    -- Arthur Girling

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Tony Shapps writes:

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I knew Don very well because he and I, and a couple of others, founded the Widescreen Association more than 50 years ago to promote the non-professional use of wider images in movie making. He and I exchanged audio tapes for some years and I had the pleasure of meeting him many times. The above association used to run a yearly Widex Exhibition and one year this filled a hotel in central London, where he showed 3D movies that he had shot using the Bolex system and polarised glasses. I later added an anamorphic to that system to produce 3D wide screen stuff.

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Don was the first Chairman of the Widescreen Association. I passed on his last tape to the President of the International Stereoscopic Union people some years ago. At that same three-day show we also exhibited three-camera/three-projector amateur Standard-8 and Super-8 versions of Cinerama on a deeply curved 21 foot wide screen with stereo sound: one of our members actually worked on the travelling version of the pro-Cinerama, and had copied the famous opening scene: "AND THIS IS CINERAMA". Don was in overall charge of the event, where we had movie dealers of that period, and we had three cinemas in continual operation throughout the event.

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In his daily work - which was strictly secret and highly security sensitive - he worked on research at the government Portman Downs facility in South of England. A research centre for nasties such as poison gases and their antidotes. He would, for obvious reasons, never talk about it. It was Don who loaned me the first anamorphic lens that I had ever seen. I really miss Don's delightful commentaries and anecdotes. He was a very keen 3D man and, unfortunately died relatively young. He was a great loss.

                                       -- Tony Shapps

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Alan F. Brookes recalls:

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I first came into contact with Don Jeater as a result of stereoscopic movies.  He and I were both using the Pan-16 format, which is shot on 16mm film using a half-frame pull down and masked off at top and bottom, to give widescreen without anamorphics.   I had a Specto projector, which had been converted to Pan-16 by Stuart Warriner, while Don had a Bell & Howell, I believe, also converted by Stuart.   I was using a Bolex H16 camera converted to Pan-16, whilst Don was using a different Pan-16 camera.   I don't remember which.   All this was taking part within the Widescreen Association, of which Tony Shapps was President.   A friend of mine, Keith Bond, was also using Pan-16, but his camera was a converted Bolex H8, which had the same body. It was Don who came up with the idea of using the Bolex Stereo Attachment with Pan-16, which gave 3D at a lower price than Super-8 or Standard-8. I followed his lead, but went one step further, mounting two Delrama Prismatic Anamorphics in front of the Bolex Stereo attachment, which gave widescreen 3D.

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As a prelude to Widex-75, I drove down to Weymouth from Birmingham to visit with Don, together with Keith Bond and John Thompson.  There, he gave us an interesting show of his View-Master stereos, which, of course, looked much better projected onto a large screen.   Shortly after that, we projected my Pan-16 Stereo movies, "Paris in Depth" and "Narrow Gauge Railways of Britain" at Widex-75, and they were well-received.

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You mentioned that you haven't seen many photos of Don.   That's to be expected. He worked for the Admiralty in some secret service capacity, so he never mentioned details of his work, and shunned having his photograph taken.  I believe he had a commissioned rank in the Royal Navy, though he wore plain clothes.  He would never elaborate on that.

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I was, indeed, involved with the formation of the International Stereoscopic Union. It was I who suggested it to Don. As Don was better connected with the organisers of the Stereoscopic Society, we decided that it was he who should organise it, although I was working with the French and Dutch societies at the time. We were both active postal circuit members of the Stereoscopic Society.

 

I remember when Don and I were discussing the need for an International Stereoscopic Union.   We had both been involved with stereo clubs in other countries, mainly France and the Netherlands, and it became obvious that we needed some organisation to co-ordinate things.   We thought of an international stereo group, like the Stereoscopic Society, but concluded that we didn't want to take away the functions of national groups, but rather co-ordinate them. The Stereoscopic Society already had an international postal circuit, and I had the International Stereoscopic Railway Circuit.  We were discussing whether this should be incorporated into the new ISU.  We had already been turned down by both the Stereoscopic Society and the Third Dimension Society.

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Yes, that photo is typical of Don. Quite a happy-go-lucky fellow, though he became despondent towards the end.   I remember his saying that he had been diagnosed with terminal colon cancer.   He had been looking forward to retirement and touring the world taking stereos, and now he was being cheated out of his retirement.

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My first camera, (ignoring the Robin Hood camera that I had bought back in the 50s, but which was a piece of junk), was the TDC Vivid, like Susan Pinsky's. With its characteristic swishing sound every time the shutter was fired you knew that you had taken a picture. But my main subject was railways, and railways rarely work in the portrait format, so my next camera was a Verascope F40, like yours. I gave the TDC Vivid to my Dad, who, as you might know, was a professional photographer, and he was delighted with it. He used it extensively until he died in 1981, and then I inherited it back. Ironically, I mounted his last rolls of film after he died, so he never got to see them.  I still have the camera.

It was Arthur Girling who wrote to me and informed me of Don's death.
                                  -- Alan F. Brookes
 

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Susan Pinsky and David Starkman write:

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We were pen-pals with Don Jeater for many years. Don was an enthusiastic View-Master Personal camera user, and we are pleased to have some reels taken by him, as well as a roll of experimental 16mm 3D movie footage done by him, and a cassette tape letter from around 1977-1979.

 

Our first overseas convention was to the 1983 International Stereoscopic Union (ISU) Congress in Buxton, UK, and we think Don had passed away only a couple years before, as items from his collection were left to the ISU, and there many items from his estate in their auction that year.

 

Susan was the successful bidder on one of his stereographoscopes that we still have! It is a pleasant memory to see Don's name. Even though we never met, we had a wonderful correspondence for a couple of years.

 -- Susan Pinsky and David Starkman

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John Rupkalvis writes:

 

Don was perhaps the most prolific communicator about stereoscopic 3D in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Back in the 1960's Don used to keep me updated on the various stereoscopic activities (mainly in the area of equipment design) of members of the Third Dimension Society in Great Britain. He used to send me photographs and drawings of some of these items.

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Don started what he referred to as the "Round-Robin". This was an audio tape with discussions about stereoscopic related events, equipment, content, and anything else that related to, or mentioning, stereoscopic imaging. The Round-Robin started on a small 3 inch reel of 1/4" audio tape. Later, when audio cassettes became available, we switched over to that format. When any of us had the tape in our possession, we erased our own previous message, and recorded a new message on that section of the tape. Then we mailed it to the next person on the list, and so on, until it got around to getting back to us, at which point we would repeat that exercise, answering any questions that came from the others, as well as adding any new information.

                                   -- John Rupkalvis

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