Memories of Alan Brown at the Palladium Cinema

Alan Brown of Binley Road was a visitor to the Palladium cinema in the 1940s. He recalls "As a child I used to go there, as did a lot of children on the Saturday Morning Club. To join the club you had to to be five years old and it cost 6d to get in. Ice cream and drinks were 3d. 

"You were let in to the cinema a 9 a.m. and the show finished at dinner time. The first film was a Walt Disney cartoon, then a short comedy like the Three Stooges or Our Gang followed by the serial Anchor's Away or Flash Gordon. 

"Then it ended with a main short film, either cowboys and Indians, pirates or the East Side Kids."

Little did Alan imagine that when he grew up he would work at the Globe as a projectionist. He started as a rewind boy at the Palladium in King William Street, he recalls

"I was asked to work there to help Bill Perry, so that he and the other projectionists could have a night off"

He remembers that the rules which governed cinemas in those days were very strict and that films in all cinemas had to end at 10.30 p.m. and the audience had to be out within half an hour. 

Alan says "If the show ended after 10.30 p.m. the manager had to  inform the police, or lose his licence". 

During his time at the Palladium Alan began to learn the art of the projectionist and when Bill Parry left to become first projectionist at the Globe he asked Alan to go with him and become his second projectionist, which he did. 

He remembers: "Bill gave me extra tutorial in the  skills of a projectionist and soon he was able to take days or nights off leaving me in charge. I felt very important and I was"

"The Sunday show started at 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. and the cinema had to be emptied and locked by  9.30. The  police checked all cinemas to make sure the law was obeyed". 

Prices for the seats were 9d, 1/-, 1/3d, 1/9d, 2/3d, and the courting seats at the back, which were double seats for those particularly interested in cinema, or something else a bargain at only 2/9d. 

Alan recalls that the relief manager was Mr. Hunt who was also an organist and known to play at the Gaumont. 

The Globe Cinema, after years of delighting picture goers was closed in 1956 by its owners the Rank Organisation which shortly afterwards converted it into a ballroom, called the Majestic.

From the Coventry Evening Telegraph, 11 May 2002, article by David McGrory.

Reproduced with kind permission of the Coventry Evening Telegraph. 

This page was last updated 28/04/03

Other stories about Hillfields in their own words