“What’s the matter?” and she said, “It’s them. That audience. I can’t do it. I just can’t face them. I’m sorry.”
‘So I said to her, “Listen. I’ll tell you about the Elephant & Castle audiences. Yes, they’re hard. They’re the toughest audience in the country. But let me assure you of one thing. However hard they are, they’re fair. They’ll give you a chance. Will you take my word?”
‘She nodded and, sure enough, she went on. And, ladies and gentlemen, may I tell you that girl’s name? That girl’s name was Gracie Fields.’
There was a respectful silence. Then from the audience came a yell of appreciation and a storm of applause. Mr Phil nodded to the girl, gave Bobby the go-ahead sign, descended the steps and rejoined me at the back of the stalls. The audience heard the girl out in a silence that was almost reverent and rewarded her with another vociferous round of applause.
When we had retired to the office to inspect the night’s takings, I ventured, ‘That was a wonderful story, Mr Phil. I’ll remember that.’
He gave me that sudden, unnerving grin. ‘Pack of lies.’
A prodigious amount of eating went on during the early evening programmes in thirties and forties suburban cinemas. Mothers with basketfuls of food would pick up their children from school and feed them their tea while they were all watching the movie. The consequent chomping, munching, slurping, rustling and muttered instructions was often so distracting to other patrons, someone at one of our weekly managers’ meetings suggested dividing the stalls into eating and non-eating areas, as some cinemas went on to do with smoking and non-smoking.
Nor did the families dutifully deposit their detritus in the rubbish bins provided, as happens (sometimes) with later generations. The result was that when the cleaners came in at the end of the day to vacuum the stalls’ carpeting, their first task was to pick up the overlay of eggshell, orange peel, apple cores, biscuit wrappers and the scattered assortment of bread crusts which, thanks to the surrounding darkness, children had found it so easy to leave uneaten. These were in addition to the ever-present topping of monkey nut shells, which always made walking between the empty rows sound like a giant eating celery.
It was, though, another measure of the way in which going to the pictures in those days was regarded as a family experience. Indeed, there were many mothers who used their local cinema as a crèche, a warm and safe place to deposit their young whenever there was a need to offload them for a few hours. I still treasure the memory of a small boy tugging at the sleeve of one of our tall Trocadero doormen to ask, ‘Please, Mister. Mum says what time is the big picture over three times?’
The great majority of men wore hats of one kind or another in those days, placing them carefully on their laps when they sat in the cinema. As it was also a time when cigarette smoking was soprevalent as to be practically compulsory, Frank Muir and I found great satisfaction many years later in combining the two habits for one of the many Sherlock Holmes pastiches we wrote back then.
‘Something else I observed, Watson, was that our quarry had recently been to the cinema?’
‘Good Heavens, Holmes, how did you discern that?’
‘There was ash in the crown of his trilby.’
In forties cinema-going, there were more scenes of a sexual nature enacted in the audience than on the screen. B-movie scenes that were played in shadow or darkness were the most conducive to back-row action and I have sometimes wondered whether that might account for the prevalence of ‘film noir’ during that decade.
It was an era when the local picture-house was about the only place that offered affectionately disposed couples both warmth and darkness, particularly the back row, known among the GIs as Hormone Alley. None of the theatres I worked in had installed the special banquette-style ‘Couples Seats’, a purpose-built facility that was often a feature of North of England cinemas, but every usher and usherette on the Hyams Brothers circuit was instructed to exercise discretion when shining their torch along that area.
Among the more venturesome males of the period, a body of back-row folk-wisdom had gradually developed, some of its tips more helpful than others. Of the only two I remember, one was the initiatory manoeuvre that could be described as ‘slide of hand’, while the other strongly recommended beginning the proceedings by kissing the nape of her neck. Not only was it believed to promote arousal, it also allowed you to watch the picture at the same time.
When I arrived at the Trocadero, the General Manager was Bill Fowler, a large, easy-going man with huge hands and amused eyes. He was unfailingly forbearing with me, allowing me completely free rein except on one point. At five o’clock every evening he would go up to his office, lock the door and I had to make sure no one on any account disturbed him. At half past five I had to go round to the side-door of the adjoining Rockingham pub and collect ‘Bill Fowler’s usual’, a quarter bottle of Scotch. Concealing this under my jacket, I would return to the cinema and knock softly on his office door. It would open just wide enough for his hand to take the bottle from me.
At a quarter past six, he would reappear, in evening dress, freshly shaven, good-humoured and ready to take his place in the foyer to welcome incoming patrons. ‘I was born three double Scotches under par,’ was the only confidence I had from him about our nightly procedure. ‘If anything happens to the Rockingham, stay clear of me.’
As things worked out, I had been transferred to the Gaumont, Watford, by the time the Blitz started in earnest, the Rockingham got hit and the wartime whisky shortage began to bite. I can only report that Bill Fowler continued to turn up at all the managers’ weekly meetings, as good-humouredly imperturbable as ever and still surveying the world with an expression of private amusement.
It was an afternoon in June 1940 and a two-thirds full house at the Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, was under my sole command, Bill Fowler having decided to take a day off. So when the telephone call came from Head Office I had to deal with it on my own.
The voice at the other end was both grim and urgent. ‘The news has just come through that France has surrendered. That means England is on its own, so you’d better let the audience know straightaway.’ I quickly alerted the projection room to stand by and hurried into the auditorium.
Making my way down the side of the stalls to the door leading into the back-stage area, I reached the organ pit and, from there, phoned projection to stop the film and bring up the houselights. Then, eighteen years old and dimly aware this was some kind of historic moment, I pressed the organ’s Up button and ascended with it to stage level.
A spotlight hit me as soon as I came into view. With a preliminary cough to make sure the mike was working, I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have to inform you that France has fallen and Britain is now fighting the War alone.’
I paused, uncertain how to continue. There was a moment of complete silence, then from somewhere at the back came a solitary shout that was immediately taken up by the rest of the audience. ‘Put the bleeding picture back on.’ As the shouting increased, I signalled the projection box, the houselights went down and the picture was resumed.
When, many years later, I described this incident to Dilys Powell,
