New Empire Palace

I lived in Montrose during the sixties. The New Empire Palace was in use as an Amateur Athletics Club, in fact a boxing club for boys. They used the stalls area. The cinema had never installed sound and closed around 1931. The proscenium was unchanged and the screen still in place against the rear wall. All the original seating was in the balcony and was used by spectators in the bixing club. The projection room, at the rear of the balcony, was accessed from below by means of a vertical ladder up to a hatch in the floor. The entire projection room was clad in exposed wood! All the equipment was gone except for the film storage cabinet. This was full of old spools with bits of nitrate film still in some of them. I was allowed to keep one. A local character called Vivian M Douglas had been the pianist at the Empire. He still had all the sheet music he used to accompany the films. A friend and myself used to give occasional film shows at a local retirement home. Mr Douglas used to come with us to provide piano accompaniment. He also appeared twice on the popular TV quiz show ‘Double Your Money’ answering questions on opera. The Empire Palace has since been demolished and replaced by housing.