Meeting Notes for February
Our new meeting venue at the Newcastle University cafe in
the Haymarket ; which is on theformer site of the Haymarket pub which we will mention later. We got off to a good start with the highest number of members
attending since we began. There was plenty of room for us and refreshments were
quite reasonable both in price and quality. I was reminded of the time I first
went to university and was told to meet my lecturer in the Reflectory. I though
what’s a reflectory, a sort of conservatory with mirrors? I had miss heard, it
was the Refectory; a posh academic word
for canteen. If you think that was a bad introduction wait until you read more
of my anecdotes about Cinemas in Newcastle which brings us on to the main topic
for February which was a project done by our members on:
The Haymarket and other Cinemas
We had a bit of duplication of efforts with the Haymarket
Cinema but as the information came from different sources it was good to have
these as verification. I have summarized our members efforts here and many
thanks to Val, Moira, Shelagh, Andrew and Irene for their input.
Newcastle Haymarket Cinema in Percy Street was opened on 21
December 1933 by Dixon Scott, later of Newcastle / Tyneside Cinema fame. The
film shown at the opening was “Just Smith” with Tom Walls. The architecture
style was Egyptian and a dramatic combination of oriental and art deco said to
be inspired by a Cairo Cinema and Dixon Scott’s extensive travels in the
middle east and far east. Dixon Scott
had been in the business for 25 years and used the profits from cinemas he
already owned in a number of small northern towns including Jarrow, Prudhoe and
North Shields., together with money raised from investors, to provide the
£50,000 capital required to build his new cinema. Dixon Scott also commissioned
the news theatre on Pilgrim Street which is now the Tynside Cinema. He died in
1939 and was buried in Egypt.
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| Haymarket (Newcastle libraries (Flickr) |
There are various numbers for its seating capacity between
1280-2000 people, this corresponds to its acquisition and enlargement by ABC during 1935-36 period. Previous to its
acquisition by ABC, the cinema was described as a cinema with emphasis on leg
room and luxury offering a continuous programme which included two feature films
that had previously opened in other cities first. Scott’s policy was to play the best of what had been
relinquished by the cities main cinemas. After 1936 the cinemas ran first run
films by MGM, Warner Brothers and Associated British Pictures in competion to
the Paramount and Queens cinemas. The
accent on luxury went as far as having a upstairs Hunters the Bakers restaurant used for functions and
press shows later to be taken over by Carricks the Bakers who ran a cafe there.
In 1942 the cinema was seriously damaged by fire and due to wartime shortages
of materials remained closed for seven months before opening with luxurious
upholstery fashioned out of newly discovered Dunlopillo and velvet.
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| Haymarket (Newcastle Libraries (Flickr) |
The ABC Haymarket business prospered and was one of the
biggest cinema money-makers in the UK. However this was not to last and it
became disadvantaged by being compulsory purchased by Newcastle University
(Kings College Durham University until 1963) in the early 1950’s by means of a
National Act of Parliament for Universities to purchase land. ABC was to
continue to use the Cinema on a 5 year lease from the University, because the
lease back periods were short term ABC was reluctant to invest large capital
sums into the building this would have included widening the relatively narrow
presidium during the wide screen era of
thee 1950’s and 1960’s or by conversion to multiscreen during the 1970’s and
1980’s. In 1974 when the University offered a 6 month leasehold, ABC, by now a
part of EMI, acquired the Essoldo which was in financial difficulty instead.
This prompted the University to have a change of heart and offer a new 5 year
lease which ABC accepted and proceeded to carry out a full refurbishment.
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| Haymarket (Newcastle Libraries (Flickr) |
After ABC declined the offer of a 3 year lease the Haymarket
closed 20th September 1984 the final film was Prince in “Purple
Rain”. Along with its neighbour the
Haymarket public house it was demolished in 1985-87. The demolishing of the
Haymarket public house was met with some impassioned opposition and its
regulars turned out in Victorian Funeral dress on its last day of business. The
pub had opened in 1833 and items from the pub were salvaged with the intention
of refitting them into the Cumberland Arms Byker.
The struggle for Sunday opening
Val found some information about the struggle for Sunday
Opening:
All picture halls were licensed under the Cinematography Act
of 1909 with local authorities responsible for the regulation of cinemas within
their jurisdiction. In Newcastle the local authority was steadfastly opposed to
Sunday opening although many neighbouring authorities were more liberal. The
chief opponents of Sunday opening were the churches, the trade unions and
owners of smaller cinemas who feared the threat of the hooliganism and damage
done by Sunday night audiences elsewhere. The main pressure for Sunday opening
came from the large circuit cinemas.
The Sunday Entertainments Act 1932 permitted the opening of
cinemas on Sunday often on a vote of the
townspeople and after debating the issue 4 times in 4 years the committee
agreed to a public vote. A poll of electors was held on 30 October 1952. A 20%
turnout resulted in a 2 to 1 victory for Sunday opening and licenses were
issued in April 1953.
30,000 queued up to attend the 24 cinemas in Newcastle which
opened from the first Sunday shows but only the Haymarket had thought to start
its week on Sunday rather than Monday else where cheaper, older films proved a
disappointment. Other cinemas quickly followed the example of the Haymarket but
it was all something of a hollow victory because Sunday opening coincided with
a decline in cinema audiences. UK cinema attendances peaked at 1.64 billion in
1946 and dropped to 54 million in 1984.
The Palace Theatre
Irene found some interesting information on the Palace
Theatre:
The Place Theatre of Varieties, started out its life in 1889
and was known as the Peoples Palace, built on Percy Street and St Thomas Street,
where the Oxfam shop is now. By 1895 a new theatre was designed by Newcastle
architect J. W. Taylor, this was a reconstruction on the original Peoples
Palace, built on the same site, when opened on 23 December 1895 this was known
as the Palace Theatre.
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| Palace Theatre (Newcastle Libraies) |
This new theatre could seat upwards of 2,000 people. The
auditorium was built on three levels; the pits, stalls, two circles and four
boxes. The stalls were fitted with tip up seats, richly upholstered in dark
crimson plush with gold embellishments, the whole theatre is lit with electric
lighting.
The stage covered a large area and is adequate to almost any
production, the dressing rooms are amply provided for the comfort of the artists.
By 1903 the theatre was deemed to be in need of alteration and redecoration. In
the main entrance from the Haymarket side, the new stairs are of marble, there
were heavy mahogany panels, and plush thick carpets, paintings in the ceiling
panels, were muses. The interior of the theatre had been entirely redecorated
and refurbished. In 1908 the theatre was visited by King Edward the VII and Queen
Alexandra, who came to Newcastle to open the R.V.I. and the new wing of the
Armstrong college on 11 July 1906. The theatre closed in 1958 when the touring
shows dried up and TV was growing in popularity. The theatre was demolished in
1961. A row of unremarkable shops stand on the theatre site today
The building news and
engineering journal provided information on the construction of the 1895
theatre
A Few Recollections
Sadly my contribution is a bit more anecdotal:
When I was a young lad in the 1950’s I lived in the West End
of Newcastle. In those times there were
lots of local cinemas and I was lucky to live 20 minutes from the Regal on Two
Ball Lonen. One of the first films I saw was when my elder sisters took me to
see Hop along Cassity which we thought was a cowboy film showing but it turned
out to be a cute cartoon about a grass hopper called Hoppity Goes to Town aslo known as Mr bug goes to town..
It was the first film I saw in colour.
There was another cinema about two miles away at Benwell
called the Rex. It was here that my friends from the street would go every
Saturday morning to see the matinee which was a Laurel and Hardy comedy and an
adventure of Flash Gordon who each week seemed to fall off a cliff or was
trampled by some horses driven by the Merciless Ming only to return unscathed, the following week.
I remember we had a long walk back home each week because we spent the
bus fare money on sweets.
The first film I saw at the Haymarket was Pirates of Blood
River with Burt Lancaster by that time there was only a single feature film
because films had become longer. Before that there was usually two films an A
film which was the feature film and a B film which was much shorter, or Pathe
News was shown to fill out the session.
The first film I saw in glorious CinemaScope at the
Haymarket was How the West Was Won. CinemaScope was a process where a special
lens called an anthropomorphic lens would create a wide view of the scene
filmed. This would have been twice the width of conventional screens and almost
the same format as we view today but via a different process. The cinemas
screens would have to be enlarged for these viewings. Many of the smaller
theatres would be stuck with the conventional format screen.
As the screen size got wider and bigger so did the film
productions. I remember How the West Was Won was so long at the time that you
had to have an intermission for the projectionist to change reels and for those
who wanted to spend a penny. Another intermission film I saw at the Haymarket
was Laurence of Arabia, now we sit for up to 3 hours with crossed legs.
The last film I saw at the Haymarket before it was purchased
by the University of Newcastle and torn down was Superman the Movie with the
late Christopher Reaves. Advertised as you will believe a man could fly. I
remember coming out at 10pm and looking up at the sky wishing I could fly. The
reality of flying brought me to a literal sicking thud to the ground when in
the early eighties I was asked to take some photographs from a helicopter over
Northumberland. I was so ill in the back of the helicopter that I filled three
sick bags. I could not face the prospect of taking them back to Newcastle Airport,
so I stuffed them out of a small ventilation slot in the back-passenger window
to my dismay and the residents of Morpeth Town three bags of exploding vomit
would be coming their way.
Our latest offering is a humble tribute to master engraver and artist, Thomas Bewick.
Thanks to John Mitchell for his sympathetic video - great work John.
You
will notice that 'Our Ben' (Benedict Alpin) features again on mandolin.
We think it is about time he joined us more formally. Ben has kindly
accepted our offer and is therefore now part of the Sawdust Jacks
songwriting project. Thanks Ben.
This song also features John Mitchell on lead guitar and John Leslie Jnr. on acoustic guitar.
We hope you like it.
As usual, the link is below
Best wishes.
John Leslie
