I was an electrician working on the Essoldo when it burnt down in 1968. We used to do a lot of cinema refurbs. We had been home for the weekend back to Nottingham and when we arrived at our works with tool box and suit case on Monday morning ready to come back down, we were told “the jobs off, as it had been on fire the night before”. Needless to say we were concerned as fires were usually blamed on electrical faults and we had spent some time rewiring the place. We had a lot of trouble with it break-ins At Shepherds Bush. There was one such break-in where they got into the projection box and smashed the projector lenses, fortunately they didn’t find the mercury arc rectifiers otherwise there would have been a terrible mess not to mention the cost of replacement. The fire was eventually blamed on a tram breaking in and setting a fire. We never went back and I thought it had been demolished.
I can remember the stars arriving at the BBC TV theatre next door, a regular, complete with a bevy of girls was Lionel Blair, I think in a large pink? convertable. The BBC World service was housed in Bush house on the opposite side.
I don’t think we were replacing the projection or sound systems in that cinema but we did in others.
I was an electrician working on the Essoldo when it burnt down in 1968. We used to do a lot of cinema refurbs. We had been home for the weekend back to Nottingham and when we arrived at our works with tool box and suit case on Monday morning ready to come back down, we were told “the jobs off, as it had been on fire the night before”. Needless to say we were concerned as fires were usually blamed on electrical faults and we had spent some time rewiring the place. We had a lot of trouble with it break-ins At Shepherds Bush. There was one such break-in where they got into the projection box and smashed the projector lenses, fortunately they didn’t find the mercury arc rectifiers otherwise there would have been a terrible mess not to mention the cost of replacement. The fire was eventually blamed on a tram breaking in and setting a fire. We never went back and I thought it had been demolished. I can remember the stars arriving at the BBC TV theatre next door, a regular, complete with a bevy of girls was Lionel Blair, I think in a large pink? convertable. The BBC World service was housed in Bush house on the opposite side. I don’t think we were replacing the projection or sound systems in that cinema but we did in others.