"Water, Water, Everywhere"

‘River on No Return’: Every cinema had it’s own peculiarities and the ‘Empire’ was no different to any other so I learned, as I visited several of the places the ‘Star Group’ had previously owned. One day I was invited to the cinema in the market town of Bakewell, in Derbyshire, where the site was managed by Albert Mousley, who I knew for my early days when I was with the same company. I learned that there had always been a standing agreement with the Manager, and the local butcher, that when he went to see the film programme, he took along a joint of meat, and in return received free tickets for himself and the family. This applied in several cases, and as they were doing bad trade, it was not an ideal situation; in a week, hardly anyone was paying in hard cash over the cash desk. I went along to the bank with the Manager, it was a Monday morning, and the takings from Friday were about two hundred pounds. So to make it look more, he stuffed the bank bag with other empty bags to swell the takings bag more than usual. The cinema was in a sorry state, and the projection equipment was good, but old. The projectors were water cooled, with a trough of water, in which you could see the warm water running out of the machine. Needless to say the Operator relieved himself into the trough when necessary, which made the whole room smelly. I peered through the port-hole to look at the screen, and got a rather strange view. I asked the Manager if they were using Mirror Projection, but he said no, it was just normal. Then why am I seeing two pictures on the screen, the top picture as normal and the bottom one being upside down? “Oh that!” he replied, Well, as you know its March, and the river Wye runs at the back of the cinema. It’s just flooded over, and it comes into the auditorium, flooding the first six rows from the screen. The boiler room is under water as well, so we don’t have any heating on either!” I wasn’t sorry when I left Bakewell that night, just thankful there were no rivers near the Heanor ‘Empire’. The so called modernisation that many of these cinemas went through, caused much of the old plaster work on balcony fronts, and in some cases auditorium walls, and boxes, to be destroyed and lost forever. 74 I go along with many others, who believe that the ‘Star Group of Companies’ possibly did more damage to the cinema buildings , than any other company in the history of British cinema. I visited the former Matlock ‘Ritz’ just two weeks before it was made into Studios 1 and 2, and gloried at the beautiful glass chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. I visited again a month after it’s re-opening, only to be told that they had cut the cables that held the lights, and that they had dropped them to the floor, and they had been totally destroyed. In a lighter vein however, there were instances like the cinema at Retford which although once converted for bingo and cinema, the building was once used for both, and has now been converted back for theatre use. Now top stars like Ken Dodd and Joe Longthorne have made appearances there, so it does go to prove that there is still a demand for live entertainment. ‘The Man Now Without a Face’: Every weekday morning around 9.45am; I would take the previous night’s takings to the bank on Heanor Market Place. Although the cinema was never broken into during my time, it was decided never to keep more that £100 in the small wall safe in my office. On the way there, I would often meet George Woolley, who at the time was quite famous, as he was one of the characters in the BBC Series of ‘The Archers’. It was strange to see this celebrity – a celebrity in voice only – for he seldom appeared in the local press despite his popularity, and spent much of his time commuting between Derby and London, when he went to record the daily programmes. He was the only man I ever knew that wore make-up, which became more obvious the older he became. We would usually pass on Godfrey Street, for he lived near Mundy Street School; he was always polite, friendly, and in general a very nice person. We would chat together about his part in the series, and he in turn would ask me how the cinema business was doing. I understand that after his death, they named another character after him, using George’s name, (Jack Woolley). He was such a nice, quite, reserved, person; I wonder now if anyone else remembers him. 75 Please go to the next web page.....