I don’t think Fairworld took over the Newcastle Studio’s Dave, certainly not in my time in the NE (I moved away in 1993). Screen size I always appreciated the one we had in the Odeon Cinema 1, that was massive and we moved it a few times for events such as when Big Daddy and the other wrestlers of their time came to town. The thing weighed a ton, we did have a laugh moving it back into place so the Sat morning movie club could enjoy another session with Keith Chegwin in some role or other! I wish that we had done more shows and gigs at the Odeon, it had the capacity and the stage to have been so much more but there you go. I must try and get in to have a look around next time I’m up that way, take some pictures and relive the memory’s. I did get into the old ABC when it became a nightclub!! It looked like nothing on earth!
Ah yes those were the guys, nice bunch. My Dad would have been at the ABC when it became the Eros even though he loved the Studios he needed to move on and while at the time, the Studios were the jewel in the Fairworld crown I think its location was just in the wrong place. Did it remain the Eros for long??
Cheers Guys, some good comments and stirring of memory’s there! I remembered Terry and I discussing that his Dad had also been a Chief projectionist, as usual this was over pints in one of the pubs we all frequented after work before running off to catch the bus with the sound of 2-3 fresh pints glugging away as we ran! Never spilt a drop!!
As Lawrence mentioned we did socialise after work and the cinema managers at Shield’s used to hire the local pub for an after work party once a month, it must be said that was great. I must ask, Gogsy and Dave who were those management guys, I have a Ray in my mind but either way they had a great approach and a unique style to cinema management. When it came to me moving on to another job in Durham at the Classic they organised a whip round, bought the presents and made me feel like a departing son rather than someone deserting the sinking ship. About a month later they called me back and gave me a big wad of cash from a tax rebate, it was totally unexpected, we sat down, chatted how my new job was going and I felt they genuinely cared. A great crew.
Gogsy, I was sad to hear about Vera, she was on the ball with her sense of humour and the pair of you made a great team, so sorry for your loss mate.
Mr Bage, retired at 55, go get a paper round! I’m 56 this year and would hate to be retired, these are the best part of your life and social interaction on a daily basis paramount to enjoying life. If your going to sit about then start writing a fictional book, talk about cinema’s, the unique bits, the people, their lives and how we interacted, the small feuds, the glory days of queue’s around the block or playing a 3 hour movie to one sleeping pensioner on a new years eve, write something about the growth of poverty that bled out of the miner’s strike that placed a noose around many a cinema. This could be called your “Boy’s from the Celluloid” moment. Best do it before Terry, Gogsy and I beat you to it! I’m sure one of us could produce something to match “Cinema Paradiso” or am I looking at this with Technicolor eyes?? Cheers Guys, keep the faith!
Wow! Small world, I remember you coming through to the Cannon Classic in Durham in ‘84 to see Peggy the manager, that must have been the last time we met up. Yes, the show in South Shields, we had some good fun with the cast and the team we had in the cinema was all shiny and new. It was strange to start work at a cinema and spend the first couple of weeks removing the balcony seats and working up on a gantry controlling the curtains for a pantomime!
Anyway, glad to see you stayed in the business, are you still involved in it?
The spy who loved me! I showed that at the Odeon all those years ago, there was always an excitement when a new Bond came out and the first weeks queue’s went round the corner, sadly it was only the 1st week and the full houses soon stopped. As a child I remember standing in the rain to see a film, the queue went all the way out of the cinema along the back lane and wound its way to the back doors of the ABC, sadly those days had gone by the time I was an adult!
Pass my best to Lawrence, hope he’s still with his wife from back in the day, they were a nice close couple and suited each other. All the best.
I did a couple of stints here as relief projectionist around 1977/78. It may have been Graeme who got a night off when I did as the movies he stated in the link to one of the pictures were ones I showed at Fairworld. I was just a trainee at the time and spent a lot of time mainly between the Fairworld cinema’s in Washington and Sunderland but did a bit here and at the Seaham branches. Always a dash at the end of the night to catch the last bus home. The Horden projection box was really quite nice and the staff popped up a couple of times with a cuppa and to make sure the trainee was still alive!! I think when we look at cinema’s we forget the family atmosphere that the staff generated and when these places closed a lot of people had developed bonds and kept in touch through the years. Good times!
PS Forgot to say, Hello Terry, hope your well, remember you well, Dad thought well of you and enjoyed the after work beers we used to have, all the best, John
I worked at this cinema for 5 years up until it closed, Richard Carlisle, Billy Souter and Keith (sorry the surname is lost in time to me) were the last of the cinema projectionists to see the place out. I was 17 when I started and worked with some great people there, along with the cinema stuff we also had a couple of wrestling bouts and a couple of “God” rock concerts to go with the aforementioned Organ concerts. It was a great shame to see the cinema close but due to times being tough in the area and the high tariffs put onto showing films by the movie companies the life was taken out of the business. Indeed when I was made redundant from the Odeon it took me 18 months to get back on my feet again and find a job when they re-opened the cinema in Ocean Road South Shields, thank god for the guys who invested in that place. All in all, I remember the Odeon, its staff, the laughs we all had, the trainee from the ABC who came down for a box of 35mm perforations as they’d been supplied a film reel without any (thank you for sending him over knacker-Ned!),beers in the Blandford and the Beehive pub’s and the close-knit team we had. I thank my Dad (one of the greatest cinema projectionists to grace the cinema’s of Sunderland!!), for initially training me up down at the Studio’s 1 and 2 in 1977. Working with him was a great experience for any father and son (I paid him back when I got him a job on the Cruise Liners!). You know what, though the cinema’s as I remember them are long gone, without them I wouldn’t have had the good life I have, without the people I wouldn’t be who I am now and I am so lucky and proud to say that I worked in the industry. I could tell you more about my upbringing and spending summers on the rooftops of Studio 1 and 2, coming in when it rained and watching a film in Studio one in what was for years my family’s private viewing balcony but they are my memories, cheers for reading.
I don’t think Fairworld took over the Newcastle Studio’s Dave, certainly not in my time in the NE (I moved away in 1993). Screen size I always appreciated the one we had in the Odeon Cinema 1, that was massive and we moved it a few times for events such as when Big Daddy and the other wrestlers of their time came to town. The thing weighed a ton, we did have a laugh moving it back into place so the Sat morning movie club could enjoy another session with Keith Chegwin in some role or other! I wish that we had done more shows and gigs at the Odeon, it had the capacity and the stage to have been so much more but there you go. I must try and get in to have a look around next time I’m up that way, take some pictures and relive the memory’s. I did get into the old ABC when it became a nightclub!! It looked like nothing on earth!
Ah yes those were the guys, nice bunch. My Dad would have been at the ABC when it became the Eros even though he loved the Studios he needed to move on and while at the time, the Studios were the jewel in the Fairworld crown I think its location was just in the wrong place. Did it remain the Eros for long??
Cheers Guys, some good comments and stirring of memory’s there! I remembered Terry and I discussing that his Dad had also been a Chief projectionist, as usual this was over pints in one of the pubs we all frequented after work before running off to catch the bus with the sound of 2-3 fresh pints glugging away as we ran! Never spilt a drop!! As Lawrence mentioned we did socialise after work and the cinema managers at Shield’s used to hire the local pub for an after work party once a month, it must be said that was great. I must ask, Gogsy and Dave who were those management guys, I have a Ray in my mind but either way they had a great approach and a unique style to cinema management. When it came to me moving on to another job in Durham at the Classic they organised a whip round, bought the presents and made me feel like a departing son rather than someone deserting the sinking ship. About a month later they called me back and gave me a big wad of cash from a tax rebate, it was totally unexpected, we sat down, chatted how my new job was going and I felt they genuinely cared. A great crew. Gogsy, I was sad to hear about Vera, she was on the ball with her sense of humour and the pair of you made a great team, so sorry for your loss mate. Mr Bage, retired at 55, go get a paper round! I’m 56 this year and would hate to be retired, these are the best part of your life and social interaction on a daily basis paramount to enjoying life. If your going to sit about then start writing a fictional book, talk about cinema’s, the unique bits, the people, their lives and how we interacted, the small feuds, the glory days of queue’s around the block or playing a 3 hour movie to one sleeping pensioner on a new years eve, write something about the growth of poverty that bled out of the miner’s strike that placed a noose around many a cinema. This could be called your “Boy’s from the Celluloid” moment. Best do it before Terry, Gogsy and I beat you to it! I’m sure one of us could produce something to match “Cinema Paradiso” or am I looking at this with Technicolor eyes?? Cheers Guys, keep the faith!
Wow! Small world, I remember you coming through to the Cannon Classic in Durham in ‘84 to see Peggy the manager, that must have been the last time we met up. Yes, the show in South Shields, we had some good fun with the cast and the team we had in the cinema was all shiny and new. It was strange to start work at a cinema and spend the first couple of weeks removing the balcony seats and working up on a gantry controlling the curtains for a pantomime! Anyway, glad to see you stayed in the business, are you still involved in it? The spy who loved me! I showed that at the Odeon all those years ago, there was always an excitement when a new Bond came out and the first weeks queue’s went round the corner, sadly it was only the 1st week and the full houses soon stopped. As a child I remember standing in the rain to see a film, the queue went all the way out of the cinema along the back lane and wound its way to the back doors of the ABC, sadly those days had gone by the time I was an adult! Pass my best to Lawrence, hope he’s still with his wife from back in the day, they were a nice close couple and suited each other. All the best.
I did a couple of stints here as relief projectionist around 1977/78. It may have been Graeme who got a night off when I did as the movies he stated in the link to one of the pictures were ones I showed at Fairworld. I was just a trainee at the time and spent a lot of time mainly between the Fairworld cinema’s in Washington and Sunderland but did a bit here and at the Seaham branches. Always a dash at the end of the night to catch the last bus home. The Horden projection box was really quite nice and the staff popped up a couple of times with a cuppa and to make sure the trainee was still alive!! I think when we look at cinema’s we forget the family atmosphere that the staff generated and when these places closed a lot of people had developed bonds and kept in touch through the years. Good times!
PS Forgot to say, Hello Terry, hope your well, remember you well, Dad thought well of you and enjoyed the after work beers we used to have, all the best, John
1984?? Laurence?? It was a long time ago!!
I worked at this cinema for 5 years up until it closed, Richard Carlisle, Billy Souter and Keith (sorry the surname is lost in time to me) were the last of the cinema projectionists to see the place out. I was 17 when I started and worked with some great people there, along with the cinema stuff we also had a couple of wrestling bouts and a couple of “God” rock concerts to go with the aforementioned Organ concerts. It was a great shame to see the cinema close but due to times being tough in the area and the high tariffs put onto showing films by the movie companies the life was taken out of the business. Indeed when I was made redundant from the Odeon it took me 18 months to get back on my feet again and find a job when they re-opened the cinema in Ocean Road South Shields, thank god for the guys who invested in that place. All in all, I remember the Odeon, its staff, the laughs we all had, the trainee from the ABC who came down for a box of 35mm perforations as they’d been supplied a film reel without any (thank you for sending him over knacker-Ned!),beers in the Blandford and the Beehive pub’s and the close-knit team we had. I thank my Dad (one of the greatest cinema projectionists to grace the cinema’s of Sunderland!!), for initially training me up down at the Studio’s 1 and 2 in 1977. Working with him was a great experience for any father and son (I paid him back when I got him a job on the Cruise Liners!). You know what, though the cinema’s as I remember them are long gone, without them I wouldn’t have had the good life I have, without the people I wouldn’t be who I am now and I am so lucky and proud to say that I worked in the industry. I could tell you more about my upbringing and spending summers on the rooftops of Studio 1 and 2, coming in when it rained and watching a film in Studio one in what was for years my family’s private viewing balcony but they are my memories, cheers for reading.