Cinema (1)

Still being used for other purposes, the Picture Palace, built 1911, was at Thorpe End and could accommodate 400 people.

Interviewer: These days the interior of most cinemas are comfortable and plush, what was the cinema like in those days?

Mr Brownlow: Well, they used to call it the flea pit so you can imagine! Oh, they were alright, bench seats mainly, well that one was anyway, the old Palace. Oh yes, weren’t comfortable by any means. The kids in those days used to take their monkey nuts and things to eat, and there’d be monkey nut shells all over the place, oh it was funny.

Interviewer: How much did it cost to get in?

Mr Brownlow: The matinees for the children was a penny, and I think in the evenings it’d be about five pence and nine pence, I think, they’d be about the highest prices. If you paid nine pence you got a nice, pretty good seat, you know, alright.

Interviewer: Was it an outing for the whole family?

Mr Brownlow: Oh yes, rather. Oh yes, a night at the pictures, that was the thing, definitely. Yes, must have a night at the pictures. They’d go no matter what was on, ‘cos there was nothing else much in those days, unless you went to see a Magic Lantern display or something like that. Pictures was the thing, absolutely.

Interviewer: Can you give me some idea of what a film programme consisted of in those days, it wasn’t just one film was it?

Mr Brownlow: Oh no, no, should get the Pathe News, that was the news of the day as far as you could get it - it used to be two or three days old as a rule, but still, it was good. And a pictorial, which was a sort of travel thing, not in colour of course, all black and white. Then there’d be the serial, Pearl White in the ‘The […] Through the Sky’, or something, ‘The Face at the Window’ or some such thing. And then the big film and a comic, usually a two part comedy, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle or somebody of that ilk.

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