The mid to late twenties of
my life was a period lived in the principal town of Sutton in the South of
London. These years were challenging,
exciting, creative, sad, productive, frightening and inspiring. In these years the core of who I am today was
formed. These were my nocturnal years
and if I had almost been broken by hardship and sadness - these years would
remain in my biography if the option to have changed it had ever existed.
I arrived from Australia
when the world was in an economic recession and I quickly moved into a boarding
room in Sutton, after a brief period living with my Auntie in Morden. I had managed to find a job and was most
grateful for it. The work was in a
cinema. I should have known the job
would have its challenges when Kathy the supervisor phoned through the offer -
"The job is yours; if you really want it!!!!"
I started this job one
afternoon and worked in the confectionery section from midday until 10 in the
evening. The customers would turn up
before each film and order the popcorn or the nachos or the hotdogs. Racing around and filling the orders. There was little time to day dream -
something I am rather prone to do. It
was hardly a mental challenge but I was just happy to be earning some money
and to be engaging with the world in a practical manner. Before this I had been studying philosophy for
many years and it was as if my anchor had been detached - and I had been
drifting between a sea of ideas and a sea of the material.
The pay was minimal and
barely covered living expenses. To
compensate we would work overtime hours and it was not unusual to work between
70 and 80 hours a week. Even doing these
sort of hours I would earn less than I now earn in a day working as a computer
engineer.
The turnover of staff was
very high. I quickly discovered that
many new starters simply didn't have a work ethic capable of sustaining the
long hours and physical requirements.
They would quit for the state benefits and the afternoon TV viewings. There were those not suited to shift work and
they would quit for a nine to five job somewhere else. Others just needed temporary work in between
college terms and they would often return a few times each year - year after
year until graduation.
Those who would remain past the
probation period all had something in common.
We were all outsiders.
The hours we worked were unsociable and so we would spend our free time
together. We were as a family - misfits
mostly young and alienated and not yet sure of our destinations. Some knew where they wanted to be but not how
to get there. A few actually wanted the
job and progressed through the ranks of management.
I kept the job going. I needed the money. An opportunity from within was
advertised. Trainee part-time
projectionist. The Chief Projectionist
showed me how to lace the film to the projector. It was a complex looping of the film through
various rollers and a shutter system. The test
was then to perform the lacing on my own without instruction. Thankfully I achieved this and since I was
the only one of the pool of applicants to do so - the position was offered.
I loved this job. The whirling of the projectors. The focus of the film. Putting films together and taking them
apart. I applied for a full-time
position and was successful. Slowly but
steadily the secrets of the craft were revealed. How to calibrate the platters in order to
deliver film at the correct speed - through the projectors. How to maintain the focal point and to
maintain and replace the shutter system.
How to cut and splice film correctly.
The projector is the heart of the cinema experience. In operating and maintaining the projector I
was putting on a show for the customer - delivering the two hour dream. It was worthwhile work.
A couple of years later the
position of Chief Projectionist was a possibility. I applied and succeeded. I then learnt about the art of management and
the demands of authority. In the small
world of cinema operations I was now a big player - second only to the
directing manager. I wore the suit and
carried the badge. I would turn up for
work, open the cinema door and note the ushers, the box office staff and
confectionery workers coming to attention.
Authority and responsibility.
I would spend five years
working in the cinema. This short blog
does not do any justice to the experience and a book could be written about the
experiences. The course of life
changed. Marriage and children. Responsibility and a need to do something
else with greater material rewards. I
always had a knack with computers. I
attended a part time hardware maintenance course in the centre of London. I moved on.
Last Saturday I asked my
dear lady if she wouldn't mind coming with me to revisit Sutton. To see the cinema and to see this world of
the past. Travel need not be from place
to place but also from the present to the past.
Some of the past is carried into the present - and indeed this visit
proved this to be true.
Here is the Robin Hood
pub. Here I learnt that a British pub is
more than just a boozer - it is the place to meet and to discuss the issues of
the day. Those of us on the 10 pm finish
shift would meet up here for a pint. It
was a quite an investment given a price of a pint was almost an hour's work.
Here is the cinema. In my day it belonged to the UCI chain but is
now an Empire cinema. I suspect they are
the same company anyway. On entering the
cinema I could see that much had been changed.
The box office was now gone and replaced by the automatic digital
machine. The sweet shop had gone and the
Baskins and Robins ice cream stand, in which I spent many months working - this
was replaced by a Benny and Jerries stall.
The confectionary section remained and so too the main hallway leading
to the auditoria – all six of them. This
cinema was a novelty when it was built – the multiplex era in Britain had just
begun.
I was tempted to ask for a
projection booth tour. I am sure they
would have obliged. After all - I was a
Chief Projectionist of the past and therefore part of the history of the
theatre. Today the projector has been
replaced by a digital monster. I have a
happy image of the whirling projectors beaming the dreams into the auditoria. I couldn't face what the booths will have
become. I didn't ask the question.
And here is another pub -
the Moon on the Hill. It was here that
many first dates and romantic liaisons began.
It was here we young lads would meet before getting a cab into Croydon
for a night on the tiles – followed by the inevitable early morning kebab or burger
and the overpriced minicab trip back to home. Thankfully the pub had not
changed at all. Even this table I had
sat in twenty years previous and ordered a meal and drink.
Peace To All
