"The New Brush Sweeps Clean":

‘The New Brush Sweeps Clean’: My first six months in the new post was not too successful, mainly due to female staff preferring a female at the head of operations. Greta Bryan was the first to go, five days after my new appointment, when one evening I found myself as a Manager, who had a Cashier that would not give him access to the safe! After a heated argument, (on her birthday), she left in tears; but she reappeared two days later as Cashier at the Alfreton ‘Empire’, which was not a surprise to me! She was soon replaced with a more efficient one in Joan Tolley. From this point in my story, you might find yourself reading things which are hard to believe, but I assure you these incidents really did happen. Onto the scene came Joan, a former shop assistant looking for part time work, and at this time I had plenty available as Cashier and Kiosk Sales person, which she accepted. Joan remained at the Heanor ‘Empire’ until it’s final closure in 1983, under the Cinemex leasehold. Cinemex was a shortened version of Cinema of Mexborough, which was the original cinema the partnership first owned. First in line for improvement was the Saturday Children’s Matinee, where attendances had fallen to an all time low of about 25 unhappy youngsters. With the help of conscientious usherettes this was easily increased to well over 300, simply by giving free lollipops which the ladies made in their spare time in the fridge room. This took about six weeks to do, and we also introduced a disco on the stage before the show started, for we found they got bored quickly. For the first year we published a newsletter with information about coming Saturday Matinee programmes, which we called ‘The Empire News’, and the old adage of ‘throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel’ certainly paid off! Programmes were from the Children’s Film Foundation, but there were monthly substitutions of films that were once popular, but now had little appeal to adult audiences, supplied by a rental company called Doverton Films. These were films like ‘The Duke Wore Jeans’, ‘Summer Holiday’, ‘Tommy the Toreador’, and Norman Wisdom films. They were cheap to rent for just one showing, but the source dried up suddenly, when the owner of the company was killed in a car crash. 48 From a friend I exchanged some Empire Complimentary tickets for a radio mike, so we could use it for games and competitions in the auditorium, and we had a small receiver connected to the amplifier in the Projection Box, which worked well. All went well, until I was coming out of Barclays Bank, and was stopped by Frank Cooper, then the manager the local ‘Curry’s’ store opposite the cinema. He asked me what went on at the cinema on Saturday afternoons, as several of the radios in his shop were tuned to the BBC Radio 1 frequency, but at 1.45pm each Saturday, all they relayed was my voice, and they had to turn them off! The circuit began to get larger, and Harold Brown and I travelled to the ‘Cecil 1 and 2 Cinemas’ at Hull to collect six auditorium speakers for the Heanor’ Empire’, and two Peerless Magna-arc lamp units for installation at the Retford ‘Majestic’ which had just been acquired. Dion Hanson was then a Sound Engineer for Westrex, (and later Rank Dolby), and he was to equip the ‘Empire’ with magnetic stereophonic sound for use with musicals. I spent several days at Retford helping with seating and other jobs, so things would be ready for opening night. Minor alterations had to be made in most of these leased cinemas which were twinned, such as separate cinema and bingo entrances, additional kiosks, and offices, which were done by Roy Phillis, (Olive’s son), who was a builder by trade. These were happy times for all of us, seeing these old buildings given a new lease of life, but we also wondered for how long. Heanor, Alfreton, Belper, Mexborough, and now Retford, were now open, and presenting nightly films. Harold and I also paid a visit to Epworth, near Doncaster where a weekend lease was taken on ‘The Rio Cinema’, but about six weeks after our visit, it was destroyed by fire. ’An Unfortunate Incident’ There were sad times too, like the Saturday morning I received a telephone call from Frank Dainty, asking if I could go for the weekend over to the Belper ‘Ritz’ to do the matinee and evening performances. It was an emergency, so Joan Tolley would cover at Heanor, but I was told I couldn’t be told the reason. I arrived at Belper just after noon; the show was to start at 2 pm; so I went to get a drink from the bingo downstairs. I stood talking to two of the card checkers in the hall as people arrived, but I sensed a feeling of hostility towards me. It was normal to be friendly with people, even if you had not met them before. 49 I also noticed that people were talking about me, and remarked about this to the head girl checker, and expressed to her what an un-friendly lot they were! I was told why, and asked ‘Didn’t I know?’ It seems that the Manager, who was running the cinema, had been taken away for questioning by the police, following a late night party at which a young lad had been invited. Along with several others who were adults, they had partied with drinks until late in the morning, during which time photographs had been taken of the lad in an un-dressed state, which had been shown to certain people in the town, and his parents had found out about the incident. Gossip had spread the story, and as I was the only male person on the site that day, people were assuming it was me! However the manager was released after a caution, and later moved to a post elsewhere. Over the years I have spent a lot of time at Belper, not that I would ever want to live in the area, but there are some nice little cottages tucked away down narrow allyways. The family and I loved to go to Belper River Gardens in early Spring, it’s popularity as such, had continued from Victorian times, when boating on the River Derwent was very popular. I never quite understood why the cinema there was so poorly supported because the building has been well looked after by it’s many owners. I always thought that the townspeople were too selective in their choice of entertainment, because no matter what kind of films you presented there, they just did not want to know. When ‘Cinemex’ took over the lease, there was also the option to take the flat on the first floor, and the lower part, either side of the entrance, was leased as shops. This was common with a lot of cinemas in the Midlands, perhaps it enabled the owner to subsidise the cost of the yearly rates in the past. The projectionist at one time was Len Lee, who lived in a stone cottage a short distance away, and I once was called to work there in an emergency when it was under ‘’Star Cinemas’. Due to a previous problem at home, the projectionist at the time had taken his pet dog to work with him because of complaints from his neighbours. Just after the start of the performance, the Regional manager for ‘the ‘Star Group’, a Mr. Shapirio decided to visit, and found the dog in the projection room. He orded it to be removed immediately but the man refused, saying if the dog went, he went too! The cinema had about 40 patrons watching a James Bond film, so they put an interval in the programme while the man and dog was dismissed, and called me over at Heanor ‘Empire’. I went over by taxi, and saved the show! 50 Please go to the next web page.....