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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.

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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

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