Coventry Cinemas

Ah, yes Alan! I remember the showroom on the corner but had not remembered that the cinema was so close to it. Also forgot there were so many buildings between the cinema and Astley's or what they were used for, except for the showroom selling gravestones! The Paris used to show reruns of kid's films during the school holidays which was big change from what they used to show the rest of the time! The Paris, Gaumont, Alexandra, Empire and Odeon were all within easy walking distance of where I lived and we had free passes to the Gaumont and Paris in exchange for exhibiting their posters :o)

Hi Tony, Don't let us forget the Carlton Cinema on the Stoney Stanton Road which was destroyed in the war. Our family moved very close to the cinema in 1949. We eventually got to know the key holder and he took us in the Carlton. It was left in the same condition as when it was bombed. It was turned into a furniture warehouse in the late 50's.

Anyone remember Saturday morning club at the Gaumont - Hopalong Cassidy, Laurel and Hardy and my favourite, Flash Gordon with his sparkler-powered spaceship

Yup, and the organ console which rose out of the erstwhile orchestra pit, the singalongs, the talent contests on the stage behind the retractable screen and the stampedes across Jordan Well when the show finally ended. It was more Batman episodes in my day but I think there were still a few Flash Gordons?

Yes. I well remember going along to the Gaumont on Sat mornings. It was brilliant. I used to go every week with my mates. You could win a lolly if you were brave enough to sing onstage during the intermission. Once my mates dared me to get up, even though I couldn't sing a note. I attempted Cliff Richard's "Living Doll." This may have been around 1961 & the song was not even in the charts anymore. Nevertheless, I was booed by all the kids in the cinema, except my mates. At least I got a free lolly. The films were great. At the end of one, such as a Zorro or Batman film, the hero would be in a life-threatening situation. i.e. hanging off a cliff, etc. You would think "how the hell is he going to get out of this one?" but of course he did, when the film was continued the next Saturday, in the next episode. The way the hero escaped was always ridiculous or "far-fetched" but us kids loved it all the same.

I do remember the Gaumont Saturday mornings. Two special Coventry Transport buses departed from Sewall Highway each Saturday. I knew the manager there, Mr. Deakin, and I had a few goes on the organ. The organist I believe was Mr. Brown. Do you remember the budgerigars in the entrance lobby? My favorite film of all time there was the 'Great Locomotive Chase' but I liked the Davy Crockett films too, for which we had our own Coventry song.

I used to love Saturday morning at the Globe in Primrose Hill St or The Palladium in King William St. Along with my brothers, sister and friends we would all walk along happy as Larry with sixpence from mum to get some sweets. I always liked to get Butterkist toffee popcorn, yum yum. I remember singing Ten Green Bottles and We Come Along On Saturday Morning in the interlude. I went there one day wearing a brand new wool coat my mum had just bought me. At the end of the show as I went to get up I found one of my coat sleeves was stuck to the arm of my seat. When I got home mum went mad and charged straight round to see the manager, I think he paid for my coat to be dry cleaned. I remember my brother Ted entering a YoYo competition at the cinema in Far Gosford St, he could do all sort of tricks with it, I know one was called Walking the Dog, I believe he won the competition.

Gaumont interior showing one of the private boxes which were intended for theatre audiences but never used due to it being converted to a cinema at the last moment:

Hi Mayjan ABC Minors at the Empire was where I could be found on a Saturday morning and sang along to Doing the Lambeth Walk and apart from Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes and cartoons of course a good morning was had by all. We were not so hard to please in those days not like the 'little dears' today.

I understand the Rex was showing Gone With The Wind the night it was bombed.I think it was on corporation street........Does anyone remember the massive bomb crater out side Woolworths where the lower precinct starts I guess they didn't bother filling the hole in.

There was also the infamous Theatre One.... down by Pool Meadow, on the border of Hillfields.

aka The Alexandra

Theatre One began as the late night showing session at the Alex in about 1969/70. The cinema was still called the Alex at that time. You had to be a member, but that simply meant paying a small membership fee to sign up. We went to Theatre One to see a lot of Ingmar Bergman films. Absolutely wonderful! Are there any film makers like him these days?

I remember in the mid-to-late 1960s there were a lot of late-night horror double-bills at the Alex, weekends only. Dracula vs Frankenstein, that sort of stuff. Being under 16 I wasn't allowed in but a student from the nearby Lanchester college told me the showings were very popular with his generation.

This has reminded me, my first job out of school in the 70's was in a tiny engineering business at the end of Elmsdale avenue just before it comes out onto Foleshill Road, well it was in a small yard and it was called Chord engineering run by two friends called Fred and George, alongside us was another slightly larger business called Stanton engineering which I believe was still trading until very recently (it may still be) although relocated to another part of the city because there is a few houses now where the factory yard used to be...but back to the topic, Fred and George had been layed off a few years before from the Brookville engineering factory on Holbrook lane and decided to try setting up on there own and used to tell me lots of storys about there days there, would love to meet them again and have a catch up, I think Fred would no longer be with us but George could very well be but with a name like George Smith I wouldn't fancy my chances of trying to trace him in Coventry!