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I am one of seven children and live in Waterloo. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when we were all younger, we used to go to the Odeon cinema (now the Plaza) on Crosby Road North, Waterloo.

On Saturday mornings Mum would be glad to see the back of us and we would head off to the cinema where they held the Saturday Club. We would pay our 6(d) pence to go in to the cinema, we would then buy our sweets and popcorn from the counter and when we walked into the main auditorium there would usually be a man playing the organ. This would then lead to us all singing our Saturday morning song, when we had finished we would settle down to watch something exciting like Flash Gordon, or a western. I always remember the adverts; it’s a bit like the telly nowadays, but without the fast forward. During the interval we would look out for the lady with the ice-creams and would have either a tub or an Orange Maid. If you were lucky you got a Jubbly – hmm, lovely. After the interval there would be something else to do, such as a competition or a draw. Sometimes the competition was a Yoyo race to see who could ‘walk the dog’, ‘swing the baby’ and other tricks that I have long forgotten. This did not happen all the time, but when it did it was great!!!

We lived from one Saturday to another and the happy memories of the Odeon for me as a child in the 50s and 60s are filled with happy times.”

Edwina Lyons

“In 1933/34 I went to “The Pictures” for the first time paying 1d. each to go in for about 2 hours. The Winter Gardens was not the best place to go to. The film was a Western, in black and white of course, I was not impressed. When I arrived home my mother asked me had I enjoyed it, my only comment was, “I’ll never go to live where the cowboys and Indians live because it rained all the time.” Nothing would change my mind. It was several years later that I realised that the film was very old and scratched. Well, it looked like driving rain to me.

Two years later I went again! I was given 6d. to pay for the three of us. I took my young sister and young cousin for their first time to a picture house in Walton Vale. We had a great argument outside, should we pay 1d. for our seat and have a penny ice cream in the interval, or the 2d. seat. As the eldest I decided – 1d. entrance and 1d. ice cream. The ice cream won! But if we had been nearer the front we would have been behind the screen!!!

I have only been once to the Plaza, about 2/3 years ago and before that to see the film of Winston Churchill’s funeral.”

Miss Betty Leitch

1956 Ice Cream advert

“As a lad in the early fifties I used to go the Gainy Abc minors Sat morning and if it was your birthday you went on stage and got a free tub of ice cream and a free pass for next week. Sunny the (doorman) said to me:

“Davey the amount of birthdays you have you have to be at least 106 years old” (he was wrong, 107)

Great days”

Davey Rowlands, Balfour Road. Ex pat. – Sent from Queensland Australia