Going to the Pictures.

I remember Saturday morning "pictures". When they showed Disney's Davy Crockett movie, there was a prize for the best Davy Crockett hat! There were some weird creations! Then there was a yo-yo craze with someone demonstrating yo-yo tricks before the film started. I used to like The Three Stooges, Flash Gordon, and there were always lots of cowboy films. My father used to take me to the cinema sometimes and would always buy me a small box of Black Magic chocolates as a special treat. He would never go and watch a B movie, and for some reason, he only liked Hollywood films - he seemed to have an aversion to English films . I never found out why.

My Dad took me to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves when I was about 4 or 5. It was on at the picture house in our little town. Unfortunately I have no memory of the cartoon but I remember the inside of the picture house. It burned down a couple of years later and was never replaced. To see a film we had to go to Carlisle, a bus journey away. We only went to see films that we really wanted to see. It was a day out!

I remember Saturday morning matinees too, in an area where I left when I was just 5. Walking what seemed like miles with all the other children from the village, carrying pop bottles to hand in, I assume for cheaper seats. The girls used to sit in the middle and the boys at the front and back, and they'd spend the whole film (usually a Western) lobbing missiles at each other over our heads and whooping and hollering. It was packed to the rafters every week and you never heard a word - they might as well have shown silent films!

The first film I saw was with my Aunt -Disney's "Cinderella"

Just now remembered the one with Emperor Ming and the jerky effects , that scared me even though they appeared to go into space in a giant tin can with metal cones on their heads.

Saturday afternoon for me. The seats were threepence and sixpence and I wasn't allowed in the" threepeny's" as all the rough boys sat there. I had a shilling and bus fares were a penny each way and we would go to Mrs Beeton's cafe at the bus terminus where the drivers had their snacks and used the 4d left for a beetroot cob, always beetroot as it was the cheapest. Wonderful memories revived with Kit Carson and other serials. The rough boys would throw things up into the beam which sent the film from the projector which was in a little room at the back and it would flash and oh the fun when the spool came off the reel a nd th cat calls filled the air.
What marvellous memories.

It was the ABC minors on a Saturday morning and good value at sixpence cartoons, films and a host to fill in the gaps.
My parents were very strict and I had be home early from evening shows so I missed several endings too. Notably Summer Holiday.

I went with friends to Saturday morning kids show. Sometimes we were really bad and one or two of us would pay and let the other three in via the fire door

My mum and dad had a small village shop and we used to get free tickets for showing the cinema adverts so I got to go most weeks. Unfortunately the last bus left at 9.45 so there are an awful lot of films I've never seen the last 10mins of !

That should be fare of course.

I used to go Saturday morning pictures my Mum would give me a shilling, 3d to get in, 6d for my bus fare and 3d for an ice lolly. There was games, films who remembers the serials which ended with a cliffhanger every single week, dance competitions we kids loved it . Sometimes we would walk home and spend the bus fair on chips..