People would bring their exposed films before we closed at 10pm. The manager would drop them into the nearby processing house, George Stocks, surely long gone, and they would be delivered back by tea time the next day.
Then we did a slightly naughty thing. The manager would go through all the packs quickly to look at the snaps. There were several reasons for this.
Firstly, to identify any consistent issues, under or over exposure, out of focus, poor flash etc, so we could advise the customer what they were doing wrong.
Secondly, to find a nice picture with recognisable people on and put it to the front of the pack. So, when the customer came in and we opened the pack to say “Are these yours?” (mix ups could happen) they could see a nice picture of someone they could recognise, be happy and then pay up the fairly high cost of developing and printing needed.
On a good day we could get sack loads of film in for processing.