"Tobor is Born:

‘Big Monsters From Little Monsters Grow’ If I were asked to choose the best, and most enjoyable part of my cinema days, it would have to be the Children’s Saturday Matinee Club, which started with just a few members in the old ‘Star Cinema’ days, when I took over the ‘Empire’. Within a year, admissions had increased from twenty to thirty children, to about 200 each Saturday. Television was in competition, with Televisions ‘Tiswas’ in the morning; so we used to advertise it as ‘Saturday is Fun Day – ‘Tiswas’ in the morning, and Saturday Matinee Club in the afternoon’. We stocked cheap lines in confectionary, anything from two for one penny, to thirty pence for a bar of chocolate, and they spent while ever they had a penny in their little pockets. We arranged a disco, some competitions, and a special imitate your favourite pop star competition. All this was possible thanks to a very enthusiastic staff, who though older themselves, were still young at heart. Then there was Tobor, who was destined to become an ‘Empire’ children’s favourite; but was laid to rest in the area we knew as the battery room, (so called because the batteries for the emergency lighting were kept in there), Here stood the figure of a stage ‘prop’, made some years earlier, to promote the film ‘The Red Planet’, a science fiction film. Tobor, (that’s robot spelt backwards if you haven’t guessed), was to be the Saturday Matinee Children’s Club mascot. He was transported to a place behind the screen, where he was given a new coat of aluminium paint, and his head fixed firmly on his shoulders; making him just over eight feet high. Flashing lights were installed in his eye sockets, and miniature antennas were fixed on his head. You could even talk to Tobor, provided you knew the order of his answers, thanks to an automatic tape recorder fitted in his chest cavity. He was launched one afternoon, when I went on stage to introduce the afternoons programme, to about 200 excited children. The plan was to turn down the auditorium lights, which left me under a single spotlight, with the robot hidden on stage, behind the curtains. At a given signal, Harold Brown would slowly bring up the red stage footlights, with Torbor’s shadow on the silver screen. 76 He would then flick the curtain switch, and the curtains would part, exposing the robot to the audience. All went well, but what wasn’t anticipated was that as the footlights became brighter, and brighter, his shadow would slowly climb higher and higher up the screen! This of course, frightened the children, who all let out a high pitched scream, leaving their seats, and running like mad into the foyer, and to the exit doors. After that little episode, we decided that perhaps we were getting a little too enthusiastic with our ideas, and Tobor finally ended his life standing in a corner of the foyer collecting Green Shield Stamps, which we donated to charity. Of all the children who supported us I have fond memories of Colin and Fiona Dallaway, they took part in all the competitions that we staged, and I still come into contact with many of them when shopping. The matinees were the future for cinemagoers, because they kept the interest of going to the cinema alive over the years. I am reminded of them often; like the time I opened my front door to pay the local milkman, who said to me one morning: “Are you Bernard that used to have the ‘Empire’ in Heanor?” I replied I was, and he said, “I used to come to your Saturday Matinee’s, they were great. I remember about twenty children were invited up on the stage, and lay flat on their backs, when we would start a record of the special tune, and they would in turn wave their arms and legs in the air. ('The Dying Fly' was another 'Tiswas' idea). We also had our own ‘Phantom Flan Flinger’, stolen again from the same show; when I almost got knocked out by someone brandishing a piece of hosepipe, which was harder than it looked. They were happy days, the kid’s loved it, but they were never to return again. Every Christmas Harold Brown would be Santa, and we would put on a really special show with lots of free goodies. All the staff were instrumental in the enjoyment provided, and in the break between afternoon and evening performances, I would cook things like beef burger and onions on a gas ring that I had set up in the boiler room. This of course meant that the smells of cooking would seep into the auditorium, so when patrons came in they would ask ‘Something smells nice, have you got food on sale?’ I would usually reply, ‘No I’m afraid not; the smell’s from Janet’s Café’ just down the road, and it happens when the wind is blowing in this direction!’ The things I got away with to look after my wonderful staff, sometimes even amazed me. 77 Please go to the next web page..........