taking on the tasks of raising Mercia’s profile and increasing our moribund book sales are three new committee members, appointed at a meeting in March

Lifting the threat of having to frame a closure motion for the next AGM to consider, the three offered their services, not only as way of averting close-down, but in a belief that Mercia and our publications are worth promoting.

Press & Public Relations

Johnny Cliff and Gerry Glover are going to act as a team to raise our profile nationally, increase our membership, and show our books to a wider audience, thus aiding sales. We’ll let Gerry introduce the two of them –

I co-founded the British Music Hall Society with the late Ray Mackender in September 1963, and Johnnie was the inaugural Hon. Treasurer. Johnnie was box office manager of the Garrick Theatre, London for twenty-odd years and then No.2 at the St. Martin’s Theatre – The Mousetrap. He is terrific with money (my life!), orderly (he always knows where everything is) and loyal.  I am untidy, open-minded, humorous and handsome!

I have been manager of the Fortune Theatre – The Woman in Black; briefly ran a theatrical agency – City Management; was co-lessee of the Westminster Theatre; and ended up as Corporate Affairs Officer at City & Guilds. I emigrated to Perth, Western Australia in 1966 and returned to UK in 1985 to look after my mother who was 85.

In Australia (Perth, Sydney, Melbourne) I was the first Administrator (CEO) of the West Australian Ballet Company, and first Tours & Promotions Officer of the West Australian Arts Council. In Sydney I was Public Relations Officer at the Arts Council of New South Wales and, for eighteen months, lessee of the Mayfair Theatre, Castlereagh Street. In Melbourne I was Tour Manager for Clifford Hocking Enterprises – Ravi Shankar, Cleo Laine & John Dankworth, Barry Humphries’ ‘At Least You Can Say That You’ve Seen It’ amongst others.

We are both retired, in our early 70s with plenty of spare time.  Both of us are members of the British Music Hall Society, CTA, the Theatres Trust, and the CAA (Concert Artistes Association), as well as the Mercia Cinema Society. At our Malpas Road base we have an office with storage space, desktop computer & printer, sound & vision gear, etc.

Johnny Cliff (left) examines the proof copy of Frank Manders’ North Tyneside, while Gerry Glover (right above) and Martin Hall (below) listen at the meeting

Book sales

martin hall has taken over Sales with enthusiasm; on a mission to get our sales graph to take a dramatic upward turn. Originally from Essex, now he is a school-teacher living and working in the Bradford area. Married with two young children, he is going somehow to find time in a busy life, not only to dispatch orders, but travel to find outlets, and possibly attend rallies and fairs with a Mercia book-stall. He can deal with e-mail orders and enquiries, and he and the web-master will work on a re-vamped home page for the web-site. There is a possibility of an on-line shop, and already he has established a dispatch point for the expected future bulk orders via our DHL account !

The Committee have recently taken the decision to introduce postage and packing charges on all new publications, commencing with Cinemas of North Tyneside.

Publishing high quality research into Cinema history is the prime charitable aim of the Mercia Cinema Society. The society needs to strike a careful balance between the size of print run and the cover price charged (which also needs to reflect Member and bookshop discounts) so that sales continue to ensure an adequate cashflow surplus to be able to fund future publications. Separating the P&P costs from the actual book price helps us to be able to keep the cover price lower within the all important book trade.

Our somewhat Victorian method ordering of books via letters and cheques is increasingly recognised as a rather old fashioned method in the Internet age, especially as the cheque payment method is no longer accepted in the High Street. Dragging ourselves belatedly into the 21st Century, we are now in a position to accept online payments via the Paypal system.

It is initially offered for UK sales of our latest book Cinemas of North Tyneside. however we intend to introduce it for all our available titles in due course.

CINEMAS OF NORTH TYNESIDE

Members price £10.95 plus £1.20 UK Postage and packing (Enter membership number to qualify)

Membership number:

Non-member’s price £12.95 + £1.20 P&P

Members price £10.95 plus £1.20 UK Postage and packing (Enter membership number to qualify)

Membership number:

Non-member’s price £12.95 + £1.20 P&P

PRESS RELEASE from Kate Taylor

Issued : June 2009                                                        01924-372748            kate@airtime.co.uk

North Tyneside’s 35 picture houses recalled in comprehensive history

Well-known local historian writes fourth book on cinemas

Little remains of the thirty-five picture houses that once provided entertainment in North Tyneside. All have closed and many have been demolished. But now cinema historian Frank Manders has recalled them all vividly in Cinemas of North Tyneside, a comprehensive history of the former cinemas in the area of the metropolitan borough.

Cinemas of North Tyneside, which is richly illustrated with archive photographs, drawings and building plans, is published this month (June 2009) by Mercia Cinema Society at £12 95p

Mr Manders’ account look in turn at the cinemas of each town and of the colliery villages, noting their location, the dates of opening, their character, the proprietors and architects, unusual events such as fires or wartime bomb damage, and their dates of closure and subsequent fates. The book includes brief observations by people formerly associated with the industry.

The wealth of detail offers striking contrasts. In 1910 Forest Hall saw the opening of the modest corrugated iron Picture Hall seating 500 people. The magnificent Ritz at Wallsend, opened in 1939 and one of only two ‘super’ cinemas in the area, was architect-designed in the art deco style and held over 1,600 patrons.

Moving pictures first found a place in popular entertainment in 1896. Mr Manders notes that the earliest exhibition in the area was probably that at the Tynemouth Palace in September 1896 at a show put on to raise funds for a new rugby ground. ‘Living pictures’ were shown during a pantomime at the Theatre Royal, North Shields, in February 1987 and scenes of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee were screened there the following October.

Early cinemas were often conversions of existing buildings. Remarkably, former Methodist chapels provided the Royal Picture Hall, Wallsend, the Tyne Picture Hall, North Shields, and the Carlton, Tynemouth. The Pavilion at Whitley Bay was built originally as swimming baths.

However North Tyneside gained an early purpose-built cinema when T F Macdonald opened the picture-house named after himself at Wallsend in March 1909.

Amongst former cinema buildings which survive today, the author notes the splendid 1937 Reno at Wide Open which is now a Co-operative store and the 1939 Lyric at Wallsend, which provides both a supermarket and facilities for High Howdon Social Club. The unfortunate Palace at Shiremoor blew down in a gale in 1911 when only partially built. It was rebuilt and opened in December 1911. In 1949 it was damaged again in an arson attack. Today it is am equine equipment retail warehouse.

In a postscript to the book, Mr Manders gives an account of the Silverlink Odeon multiplex at Wallsend business park, now the only commercial film venue in the borough.

The multiplex was opened in February 1999 by the Geordie TV duo, Ant and Dec. Other national stars associated in some way with local cinemas also find a place in the book: The great film comedian Stan Laurel was the son of Arthur Jefferson, one-time proprietor of the Borough Theatre, North Shields. It was at the Borough that Jimmy Campbell, songwriter whose hits included ‘Show me the way to go home’, and ‘Goodnight, Sweetheart’ began his career.

Author Frank Manders was born in Carlisle but moved to the north east as a student at King’s College, Durham. Shortly after taking his degree in General Studies he embarked on a career in Librarianship, finally being appointed as the Local Studies Librarian at Newcastle in 1980. He is known for his historical accuracy and insight. His first book, A History of Gateshead, was published by Gateshead Corporation in 1972. Mr Manders had gone to the cinema regularly since the age of five but only became interested in the history of picture houses when the Newcastle library acquired a significant collection of photographs of cinemas. He felt, he says, that ‘something should be done about them’. The ‘something’ resulted in his magisterial book, Cinemas of Newcastle, which was published by Newcastle upon Tyne City Libraries and Arts in 1991. He has also written The Cinemas of Gateshead and, with Charles Morris, Essoldo, an account of the theatres and cinemas of the Tyneside entrepreneur Sol Sheckman.

Mercia Cinema Society is a registered charity and was founded in 1980 as a national organization to promote and publish research into the history of picture houses. It publishes a quarterly journal The Mercia Bioscope and has produced more than sixty well-researched books on cinemas in localities across the country.

Cinemas of North Tyneside, ISBN 9 780946 406654, is available from booksellers or by post from Mercia Sales Officer, 23 Thrice Fold, Cote Farm, Thackley, Bradford, BD10 8WW. (Enquiries : sales@merciacinema.org) Cheques for £ 12 95p + £ 1.20p+p (total £ 14.15) should be made payable to Mercia Cinema Society.

ends

Demy, laminated card colour cover, section sewn, prelims + 139pp inc. full index

Frank Manders             Telephone 0191 5283068

Illustrations for reviews are available as jpgs from admin@merciacinema.org

ends

Click on the image below to enlarge it

From the Coventry Evening Telegraph:

Gil Robottom’s history of Coventry cinemas

Jun 5 2009 By Jane Stirland

“GIL ROBOTTOM spent 25 years researching the history of Coventry’s cinemas, but died suddenly before his work could be published.

Determined that his efforts should not be in vain, his grieving widow, Lynne, collected all his material together and approached a publisher.

The result is Coventry Picture Palaces, a beautifully illustrated book charting the rise and fall – and eventual resurrection – of the city’s big screens.

Lynne, who lives in Blandford Drive, Walsgrave, said: “After Gil died, I didn’t want to see all his hard work go to waste, so I gathered everything together and contacted the publishers (Mercia Cinema Society) who brought it up to date.

“When they presented me with a copy of the book at The Herbert gallery, I was so proud. Gil would have been so happy; the book is his dream come true. Cinemas were his passion.”

Gil died unexpectedly in October 2007, three days after going into hospital for a minor operation. He was 64.

His legacy, Coventry Picture Palaces, dedicated to wife Lynne, tells of the growth of the city’s cinemas from the days when moving pictures were first shown in the city in the 1890s through the golden years of the 1930s and ‘40s, when for a time there were as many as 30 picture houses, to their slow decline beginning in the ‘50s with the growth of television.

Gil’s interest in cinema began when, as a boy, he attended the Saturday morning club at Coventry’s Gaumont Palace in Jordan Well.

Lynne said: “Wherever we went on holiday he was always taking pictures of old cinemas; he would seek them out and welcomed any chance to get inside with his camera.”

His working life was spent first in the toolroom at Dunlop and then at Jaguar where he become an instructor in the apprentice department and then went into public relations for the company.

But it was as a cinema historian that he became widely known in the city where he often gave talks and took part in radio broadcasts on the subject.

The book highlights 1911 as the year when the first purpose-built cinemas – no fewer than five of them – were opened in the city.

And it shows the devastating effects of the Second World War when raids on Coventry destroyed three picture houses and damaged several others.

The Rex, the most splendid Coventry super-cinema ever built, complete with organ, restaurant and dance floor, was to have the shortest life of all; it was bombed in August 1940, the night before the eagerly-awaited Gone with the Wind was due to open.

The publication includes references to some of the local men, such as Gus Pell, Charlie Orr and Harold Philpot, who invested in cinemas before the big names like ABC and Odeon came to the city. Noted too are the splendid organs which were installed in all the better venues.

An afterpiece by cinema historian Ian Meyrick brings the book right up to date, with accounts of the area’s two modern multiplexes and the ill-fated attempt to provide a suburban twin-screen operation in the former Rialto-Casino building in Coundon.

The many illustrations include a number from the collection of the late W.G. (Bill) Edkins, one-time projectionist at the Astoria (Albany Road) who took over the Imperial (Earlsdon Street) in 1947 and some from the Coventry Telegraph archives.

Publisher Mervyn Gould, administrator of the Mercia Cinema Society, who designed, edited and indexed Coventry Picture Palaces, said: “Regrettably, the author died before his work was finished and so the book has been published posthumously; we hope the end result is as he would have wanted it and that it will be a lasting memorial.”

The paperback publication, priced at £14.95, is available now from The Herbert art gallery and museum in Jordan Well, from bookshops or, post-free, from the address below:

HOW TO ORDER

Orders to the sales Officer:

Martin Hall, 23 Thrice Fold, Cote Farm, Thackley, BRADFORD BD10 8WW

Cheques payable to the Mercia Cinema Society

Tel: 01274 583251
e-mail: sales@merciacinema.org

(Please note that only the Sales Officer knows the current availability of items in stock. Please enquire about availability from him – other officers will have no idea what is left).

Mercia Cinema Society is a registered charity, founded in 1990 to promote and publish research into the history of picture palaces.”

MERCIA  CINEMA  SOCIETY

MINUTES of the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2008

held at the Tyneside Film Theatre Newcastle-on-Tyne Saturday 13 December at 1.45

1          Chairman’s welcome : Miss Taylor welcomed all present, and as there were members who were attending for the first time, introduced herself and those members of the committee present. She then checked the quorum.

2          Quorum & Proxies present, Derek Atkins, Dave Biscombe, Mervyn Gould, Ian Grey, Ian Houseman, Frank Manders, John Prickett, George Reywer, Harry Rigby (CTA Bulletin editor-observer), Colin Sanders, David Simpson, Kate Taylor, Nick Taylor (12 members); proxies, Patrick Butler, Jack de Coninck, Victor A. Edwards, D. J. Gammage, John R. Hunt, Ian Meyrick, Philip J. Roberts, Peter Sagar, John G. Slater, Paul Smith, Frank D. Snart, D. T. Swaffer, Neville C. Taylor, H. V. Vahey, Ian Van Ryne, Victor Welland, David R. Williams (17) – more than the required 10% of membership.

2a        Sanction for present meeting : The chairman obtained the permission of the meeting to sanction this present meeting, as by constitution we had to hold the meeting in the first week of December, but could not get in here then.

3          Reading/adoption of minutes of 2007 meeting : The minutes were printed on the agenda sheet. Their adoption was proposed by Derek Atkins, seconded by Ian Grey, and they adopted nem. con.

4          Matters arising from 2007 minutes : There were none.

5          Reports : Chairman’s review of the year : see end The meeting accepted this on the proposal of Ian Houseman, seconded by Derek Atkins.

Membership : Colin Smith reported that we had 205 members at present. During the year, we had gained 23 new members, but lost 16, sadly, some through death.

Sales : Stuart Smith – read in his absence by the chairman : 366 copies of Mercia titles sold : double-digit sales were Barnsley 87, Basingstoke 163, Durham 22, Medway 44, Swale 15, and York 11. 14 other titles were sold in single digits. Together with other publisher’s titles (342), total 708 copies / 146 invoices issued.

Treasurer : The audited report was before members. We are solvent, and have a good balance with the Charities Official Investment Fund account (COIF). The printing & postage totals were up with two books published and sent out. We are very grateful for donations received with membership renewals from no fewer than 32 members. Gift Aid is yet to be claimed for the year, but clarification had now been received, and we would claim for it. No charge for the web-site this year, so next year will register as double, for the two years. The meeting agreed to write off the former old and out of date sales computer. Ian Houseman could not report on condition, but there is no book value for it : this write-off was agreed.

Editor : Paul Smith reported through the chairman that he would be taking a sabbatical until September to write up his M. Phil. He thanked the committee for their support. ‘The year has seen varied, and I think, interesting copies of the Bioscope. We have had to rely on members of the committee for articles. Once again we have had to withdraw an article when prepared for publication, due to it having appeared elsewhere. Presentation of the Bioscope is now of a very high quality and continues to benefit from the adminstrator’s unstinting efforts.’

Administrator’s report : see end Comments : David Simpson expressed his gratitude to the editor and administrator for his wife Diane’s Bioscope obituary.

6          Elections: Chairman: The vice-chairman took the chair, asking if there were any nomations for the post of chairman: there being none, he proposed Kate Taylor to the assembly. She was unanimously re-elected and resumed the chair.

Officers The chairman asked if there were any nominations. On receiving none, she proposed the following (en bloc) : Mercia Bioscope Editor: Paul Smith, Administrator: Mervyn Gould, Treasurer: Ian Grey Web-master: Ian Grey Membership Secretary & Vice-Chairman: Colin Sanders, Public Relations: Vacant, Sales: Vacant. There were no offers for the vacant posts, and the existing officers were unanimously re-elected.

Committee (en bloc) : Derek Atkins, Ian Houseman, Frank Manders, Ian Meyrick, Christopher Stacey, Frank Wright. No proposals were received to add to the members, so the above were re-elected. (Note: the day after the meeting the chairman was informed that Frank Wright had died.)

Honorary Independent Reporting Accountant : Philip M. Hollins, M.A. (Cantab.), F.C.A. The chairman said how grateful we were for his work and we would ask him to continue.

7          Constitution – all committee members to be of Trustee status – Charity Commission requirement

- alteration of AGM to any December day / date - Administrator

After explanations, it was decided to take no action on either of these points.

8          Publication plans: Coventry is at the printer, and Frank Manders is about to deliver North Tyneside. Huddersfield: Paul Smith reported via the chairman ‘Progress is slow due in large part to my being unable to devote enough time to move the project on at a quicker rate; this is unlikely to alter until after September 2009 when the first year of the writing-up period for the M.Phil. comes to an end. I am hoping to finish it at this time and avoid having to enter the second year of the writing up period. I will of course keep Kate and Mervyn aware of the position.’

9          Publicity / web-site : We have now an e-mail order address, and are hoping to set up a web-shop. Perhaps a charity account with e-bay. One or two members have asked for leaflets to give out at gatherings, and we have supplied them with these and supplementary copies of the Bioscope. We have no specific knowledge of extra members recruited by this means, though.

10        Any Other Business (only by permission of the Chairman) : A member brought up the restoration of the Plaza Stockport, and asked if we should hold an AGM there. The chairmen replied we had indeed had an AGM there, and the administrator added that we hadn’t printed anything about it as they had not sent any information or press release.

11        Close : The chairman closed the meeting at 2.45, thanking Frank Manders for the arrangements: members then viewed the Classic auditorium.

Chairman’s Review of progress during the year The year has again been one of steady achievement. We have gained sufficient new members to balance the loss of others. The Bioscope has been issued each quarter with its customary promptness and with material from new, as well as quite regular, contributors. It has been well illustrated with photographs etc from a range of sources, not least from the accumulating archive of our own administrator, Mervyn Gould. We remain grateful to editor Paul Smith (who has himself contributed some very useful research studies of cinemas in towns in the Calder valley) and to Mervyn.

We have published two new books. Mervyn Gould’s substantial Basingstoke Entertained was published in December 2007, has been warmly reviewed and is selling well. Kate Taylor’s more modest Barnsley Cinemas came out in time to be issued to members as a freebie with the May 2008 Bioscope and is also being sold at outlets in Barnsley and Penistone. At the time of our March committee meeting in Birmingham, we were able to meet Chris Clegg, one of the founders of the Society, who passed on to us the manuscript of the late Gil Robottom on Coventry’s cinemas. Since then Mervyn and new member Ian Meyrick have given many hours to extending the research and the book is ready for sending to the printer. Other manuscripts are in preparation.

Our web site has continued to be updated frequently by Ian Grey and is a vehicle for sales as well as for the recruitment of new members. Colin Sanders has worked steadily on building up his archive of accounts of cinemas across Britain and has proved a useful source of information–at least for myself–in my work for the quarterly journal Screentrade.

We have been very pleased to welcome Ian Meyrick, author of the Tempus publication Oxfordshire Cinemas, onto the committee as well as Ian Houseman, who gave valuable assistance at all our former conferences. We were greatly saddened to learn of the death earlier in 2008 of our former treasurer, Anthony B Phillips, who had been a most dedicated officer and a loyal member. We have lost contact with our former publicity officer, Derek Atkins, who remains a committee member but who was, when we last had news of him, very ill.

The year has ended on a sad note with the resignation, after seventeen years of highly efficient service, of our Sales Officer, Stuart Smith. Stuart has dealt not only with the sales of our own considerable range of books but also with Brian Hornsey’s Fuchsiaprint publications which remain a very useful source of income for ourselves. Brian continues to produce new work with amazing frequency and most generously gives all his work to us. The sale of 333 items of his during the past year indicates something of the value of this contribution.

We can report that our finances remain in a very sound state and are very well looked after by our treasurer, Ian Grey. We have continued to deal with requests for information from students and from the media and some of us remain in demand for talks. Digital projection equipment and the Powerpoint program have meant that these can now be easily and well illustrated.

Our experienced team of officers has remained dedicated to furthering the interests of the Society, giving much of their time. They have met as a committee once, in March, in Birmingham and members have remained in contact regularly otherwise by telephone, letter and e-mail. We are most grateful to them. And we are grateful, too, to Philip Hollins for again examining our accounts.

Kate Taylor for, and on behalf of the Committee, December 2008

Administrator’s report A duck, perhaps, not a graceful as a swan, illustrates our year. As the chairman reports, we have published four Bioscopes, a booklet, and a small book. Our membership climbs slowly: books continue to sell. A calm glide on top of the water: but, underneath, the webbed feet are paddling madly. Coventry is at the printer; the web-site has been revised and enlarged; Frank Manders’ North Tyneside will soon be with us; Huddersfield is in creation; sales promotion through web-site e-mail and other plans are afoot; we have a re-invigorated committee; there are further book possibilities, such as Halifax; and still my own books to research, write, and launch on a (mainly) ungrateful world. And I’ve probably forgotten a few more things.

I value highly our links with other organisations and people. We get any illustrations we need from Clive Polden and the CTA archive, Harry Rigby will send his photos by return (and, in the case of Coventry, a memoir to go with them) Allen Eyles always gives a friendly hand in need, Richard Norman forwards requests from the Tony Moss collection, and Jeremy Buck and the CTA shop is our best regular customer. The PPT is supportive, and Steve Baker of Rewind advertises us and reviews our publications.

We can be proud, I think, of the quality of our output – it looks good and reads well! Paul has increased the coverage of the Bioscope enormously, and we hope readers appreciate the range. For getting the Bioscope files to the printer, and then the Bioscopes to the post, time and time again either Ian Houseman or Terry Simmons takes me and the carrier-bag-fulls to the post office. Between them, they save the society many pounds a year in ferrying me instead of paying taxi fares. Q3 of Loughborough does all our work, and we thank them for their friendliness and the quality of work that they produce on our behalf. In addition, Ian Housemen has fetched two collections from Coventry for me, and transferred the Mercia sales stock from Sheffield to secure temporary storage. And, of course, his work is evident to all in the covers of Barnsley (which got a special appreciation in the PPT’s Rewind notice) and Coventry.

Membership rises, oh so slowly, but rises. Our finances are sound. But, and a huge But, in spite of the hard work of officers, we have two vital vacancies – sales and press. We don’t need more money, more members would be nice, but we can run as we are, however, the twin spires of publicity and promotion and sales of our products must be addressed. There is no longer any fat in the organisation (though the administrator and treasurer still tend to block the sunlight at meetings) – one more of us goes down and we’re out. Please, please, please, one or two of you – come over into Macedonia and help us!

I am delighted to thank all my officer colleagues for the work that they do, and the committee members for their support. I enjoyed working with Ian Meyrick on fleshing out Coventry, and am awed by the work Ian Grey does for us in a busy life in the matters of web-site and finance. I look forward to working with Frank Manders and Ian Houseman on North Tyneside. And talking of a busy life, we are, as always, fortunate and grateful that our chairman finds time for us in hers.

Mervyn Gould