大象传媒

This story was submitted by Allen Buckroyd, who compiled 鈥楪reat Baddow Oral History鈥�, published in December 2003. The book contained this contribution from John Jackson and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions.

John Jackson - My Cinema
During my teens, when the war started I made my own cinema.
I was in the youth club as were most boys and girls. I used to give a film show at the Parish Hall. I used to hire a film from Body鈥檚 the chemist in Chelmsford for 1s-6d a spool. I used to have it for three days. They were mostly First World War films and I remember one with U-boats and Q-ships. The children got very excited with that one, which was a 5-reeler, lasting one and a half-hours! There was no sound. I had a radiogram with a speaker behind the screen in the Parish Hall. You might forget to wind it up. Sometimes it would blow up and the children would cheer and clap. The projector fuse would blow and the transformer would smoke, and I would have to wait for it to cool down. The films were all in black and white, with no talking. I used to choose the music. For Q-ships I chose 鈥楧ance of the Hours鈥� as it had exciting music in it. There was dreamy music too. In the dark you had to pick out the right track to go with the scene.
I remember the children in Baddow really loving these old films. They all went quiet, then they used to cheer when things went right, and cheer when the projector went wrong! They hissed the baddie and shouted out, 鈥渉e鈥檚 behind you鈥�. They shouted at the screen as if it was a play.

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