“I was interviewed for the position of Assistance Cinema Manager, with the Rank Organisation, at the Odeon, London Road, Liverpool. The interview was on Bonfire Night, 5th November 1957. Guess who the interviewer was? – Regional Controller, Mr A. J. Rockett.

 

Odeon Cinema, Waterloo, 1957 and the playing of the National Anthem. Just before the end of the last performance of the evening there was usually a rush to exit the cinema as those still in the audience , when the lights went up, were duty bound to stand and wait until ‘God save the Queen’ had been played. All movement stopped when the ‘National Anthem came on and even those people caught half-way out in the aisles would remain still until the ‘Anthem’ was finished.

While working as Assistant Manager at the Royal Hippodrome in West Derby Road, the Fulham football team came in one Friday evening. At that time (1958) they had a few famous players like Jimmy Hill, Graham Leggett and England captain Johnny Haynes; which the older generation will recall. At the interval I put a ‘slide’ on the screen saying, “Welcome to the Fulham Football Club. We hope you enjoy tonight’s show. We hope you don’t enjoy tomorrow’s match against Liverpool quite so much!” They took it in good part and the following day at Anfield the game ended in a 0-0 draw.

Derek also met his wife of over 50 years Eva. She worked as an usherette at the Odeon in Crosby and on his first day on duty was introduced to his wife in an amusing manor.
She came into the cinema scooting her bike through to park it, and wondering what she was doing called out to her ” Excuse me, I didn’t catch your name?” and she replied “That’s because I didn’t throw it”, and continued to go through the cinema to park her bike, unaware that he was the new manager.

Later that day the usherette had to line up in front of the cinema manager who at the time was a man named Sammy Moore, in what was called ‘The Managers Parade’ – whereby the usherette would line up to be inspected upon appearance and smartness of their uniform. The usherettes were then introduced to the new assistant manager, and Derek and Eva were formly introduced. Fell in love and have been married ever since.”

Derek Anderton

The cinema became a place where women could find employment in the form of, ticket sellers, usherettes and kiosk sales staff.

Working in a cinema at that time was regarded as an acceptable job for women, and one in which she could easily fit around her family commitments by working in the cinema at weekends and evenings.

Staff from The Palladium, Seaforth c.1951

The usherette or ice cream lady as she was known by the children would have a variety of duties to perform to assist in the smooth operation and safety of the patrons of the cinema. Her duties included collecting tickets and showing people to their seats, selling ice creams and refreshments during the intermission and general cleaning and presentation of the cinema.

Staff from the Queens Picture House c.1943

The ticket sellers would work from an area known as the pay box or pay booth and would sell tickets to the public for film shows as well as provide information about new films coming to the cinema.

kiosk sales staff would sell refreshments and sometimes cigarettes and film magazines from a counter at the cinema. They would sometimes be paid a commission on sales.

In some cinemas the usherettes would go around the cinema spraying disinfectant or Flit spray to eliminate the odour of teenagers and dispel any unwanted creatures such as fleas which may have came into the highly populated cinema.

Commissionaires would be on duty at some of the cinemas, their role was to maintain order in the queues and also acted as support to some of the other cinema staff. Commissionaires would often be smartly dressed wearing a long coat and peaked hat bearing the cinema name on a band in the front, almost military like in appearance. At special events, commissionaires would open doors for special guests and would often be the first point of contact to cinema patrons.

The cinema manager would oversee the staff, running and daily workings of the cinema. They would be in charge of staff and make sure they appeared smart and were prepared for what was then, very busy times working in the cinema. The cinema manager would also be the promoter of the cinema and would have to think up marketing strategies or ways of advertising the cinema and forth coming attractions. The cinema manager would also have to know how to work the projection machines in case there was a problem. Some cinema mangers who worked for circuits such as The Rank Organisation – Circuits Management would be in competition with other cinemas as to the best promotion of the films and cinemas, and as film and news reels were distributed between cinemas would benefit from having a good relationship with other cinema managers in the area. Cinema managers would always dress smartly and would greet the cinema patrons upon arrival and departure of the cinema.

The Projectionists would be in charge of running the film shows to the patrons at the cinema. Film shows at the time didn’t just consist of one film as they do at cinemas today, from the 30′s to the 60′s a cinema program would often consist of adverts, sometimes of a local nature, The Newsreel such as Pathe or British Movie Tone, a ‘B’ film, a cartoon and then the main feature film. Cinemas provided a full afternoon or evenings entertainment and the projectionist would have to oversee the film show from what was sometimes a small projection box area, maintaining the film reels and making film reel changes at the appropriate points within the film show.

Cinema Page Boys
Memories passed down through families have been shared with the project regarding both cinema attendance and working at cinemas. One such memory is from Shelagh who’s both grandfathers worked at a local old Picture Houses in the area. One worked in a cinema called The Corona which was on college road as a page boy, the other was a musician who played in a cinema orchestra during the days of silent films.

Page boy’s were employed by some cinemas to promote the cinema and what films were showing. They would wear a sandwich board displaying bill posters and travel around the area as a walking advertisement.

Cinema orchestras and musicians
Before the days of talking film cinemas would have musical accompanying the films to help create atmosphere and feelings. Some cinemas would have whole orchestras or organ players, other smaller cinemas would just have maybe a piano.

The manager of the cinema would award marks to the children, prizes such as free cinema tickets and sweets could be won by the highest scoring monitors.

Watch James Walsh’ memories of being a monitor at the Gainsborough cinema: