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Light House

'I went to the Light House very recently and it was more like the old style cinemas than those multi-screen places. It was much smaller but it had much more of the homeliness of the old cinemas. It was quite comfortable and you felt like a member of a small community. At the Showcase or those other places you feel like a number.'

It's a real pity that the Light House is the only cinema in the town. It started a few years ago didn't it but I never thought they had films on which I would like, so I never went.'

'The Light House is one place I've never been to. That's because I never go into town nowadays at my age and because I didn't think it showed the sort of films I would like. I don't think anywhere shows those sorts of films anyway.'

'I've passed the Light House loads of times on the bus going into town but it wasn't until you told me that it was a cinema that I even realised that. That's pretty sad really but I reckon that's why so few people go there, especially of my generation.'

'I went to it with my grand children recently and I thought what a really nice little place it was. We had a pizza before the film and the children took in those enormous containers of popcorn.'

'It's got to be the nearest thing for miles to an old style cinema. It would be a great shame' if they opened one of those big places with loads of screens and killed off the Light House.'

'When I went to that part of town I couldn't believe how much it had changed, with the Light House and all those bars right next door to each other. It's a wonder they all manage to stay open. Perhaps they won't.'

'I saw a film at the Light House for the first time just before the school holidays. I went with my grandson to see one of those big Disney films. It was quite exciting really because I haven't been to the cinema for about thirty years.'

'It would be a really good idea if the Light House offered people of our age the chance to go to see some of the really great old films and so save us having to keep relying on the telly or video. I would love to go to the cinema in town and see a film like Gone With The Wind or Singing In The Rain. If they build a multiplex that might be one way that the Light House could survive.'

The Ideal

'I doubt if there's many people still alive who remember the old Ideal in Rookery Street. You used to sit at the back and you could hear the horses go past. Whenever we had a sing song there the ball used to bounce along the screen and follow the words for you to sing along with.'

'The Ideal was more often called the Smack. The reason was supposed to be something to do with the fleas which you smacked as they itched on your body. I don't know how true that was.'

'It's not very easy to remember that much about the Smack or the Ideal because it must be about fifty years ago that it closed, if not longer. Still, it was the very first picture house I ever went to and it was right by the canal. The front of the pictures was by the canal and the screen was by the road. They turned it around later. If you go down the Wednesfield Road now you need to look for the carpet place and that's where the Smack was.'

The Regal

'You talk about local cinemas and that is exactly what the Regal was. It was for us in Wednesfield. If you went, there you always saw loads of people from the village. When they decided to close the Regal I think it was just another example of the end of Wednesfield as a separate place. Now it's just another part of Wolverhampton.'

'The Regal used to stand on the corner where the supermarket is nowadays. It was an impressive building. It took up the whole corner and when you went inside you went into a really nice foyer, if quite small. I used to go about once a week and I think I must've seen some of the best films ever made at the Regal. They were usually shown at the Regal after they'd been to other cinemas in town. Because it was Wednesfield's Cinema you never bothered about whether it was on in town because you felt part of the village not the big town.'

'Wednesfield had its own cinema in the Regal and so it was part of the community. When you went to the cinema you were part of the community's life. They never realised such things when they decided to pull it down. That was vandalism.'

'I used to go to the Saturday matinee at the Regal, as did most of my friends. I suppose it was the same as any other matinee but it seemed that bit different because it was in the village and there were no other cinemas with matinees on at the same time. When we came out we'd play out the scenes from the matinee when we got home. We probably carried on at school on the Monday as well.'

'I think the Regal was as nice as any of the big cinemas in the centre of Wolverhampton. The screen, sound, seats and decor was equal to any establishment. What really mattered to me was that the regal was near home and I could walk up from Amos Lane any time to see the films. I didn't even have to catch a bus.'

'When you are young you think everywhere is really big and that's how I remembered the Regal as the biggest building in the centre of the village. But if I now think about it, it was probably not that big at all.'

'I loved to go to the local flicks so the Regal was almost like a second home to me. It had the best films come some time after their release and because it was local you felt that all the people who worked there and went to see the films there were from Wednesfield as well.'

'The two cinemas I went to most were the Regal and the Clifton at Fallings Park. They both must have closed very soon after each other because it was as though I lost the two places I most loved at the same time, perhaps I'm dreadfully wrong.'

'If anyone asks me which cinema I miss most, it's always the Regal because it was the only one worth going to near Wednesfield. I went to the matinees there, I did my courting there and I even went to the Regal with my grand children when they were very small. It must have been easy thirty years ago.'

'Sometimes when I go in the Solo I think about the old Regal and I must admit I'd rather have the cinema back than the supermarket. After all, there's other supermarkets. Mind you, aren't they going to build a new cinema by the Co-Op. it won't be quite as homely as the Regal but at least it will be a cinema.'

Alhambra

'The Alhambra did not have that much of a frontage, it was almost like another shop front on the High Street. I remember seeing old man Wood at the Alhambra, well at least his son. I think he was Mayor of Bilston some time or other. The cinema was OK inside but I don't really think it compared to the other cinema in the town.'

'The Alhambra was quite small but very homely. If you went there you were always made to feel welcome by the staff. It belonged to the Woods family I think. They were big noises in Bilston. They owned the other cinema as well.'

'It was the sort of cinema that you would expect in Bilston. It was small and very welcoming to the customers. I think there could never have been many on the staff there. You felt it was all done by the same people.'

'I went to the Alhambra most of the cinemas in the town and of course in those days Bilston was a separate town, not part of Wolverhampton. As a result of that, whenever you went to the cinema you felt everybody in the place was from Bilston, like you. But, like everything else in the town, it closed down.'

'I'm sure there were two cinemas in the High Street years ago. They were opposite each other. The Alhambra was the older place I think and I only went there once or twice. It stayed open longer than the other one in the High Street though.'

'The Alhambra was my own favourite. I don't know why but it always felt small and comfortable. It had a posh name as well. Years later we went on holiday to Spain and I saw the real Alhambra. It was a bit bigger and posher than the Bilston cinema.'

Wood's Palace/Palace/Odeon

'I went to all the cinemas in the town of Wolverhampton and not one of them compared to the Palace that the Woods had built in Lichfield Street. It was a theatre more than a cinema and a pretty fine theatre at that. It was the first place I ever went to see the films. I can't remember the first film I saw but the image of the place stuck with me. Every time I went to any other cinema in the area I would compare it to the Palace and find it wanting.'

'If there's one place in the town they must never pull down it's the Palace or the Odeon on Lichfield Street. When it was built my dad told me it was the best place in the Midlands to go and see a film. It was one way in which the Wood family showed the people of Bilston how much they cared about them. It was built according to dad to show the people in Wolverhampton that they didn't have everything.'

'Wood's Palace is how I always remember that place. It was called that because the Woods built it. I never met any of the Woods but their picture house was something special. It reminded me of one of those large theatres. It had an orchestra pit and really beautiful ceilings. I've been to the Bingo there in the past and you can still see a lot of the original building.'

'Lichfield Street wasn't really a very good place to build the cinema because it was a main road and anyone travelling into the town from either direction would find it difficult to get in.'

'It's a social club now isn't it?. That seems a real shame when you consider that it must have been one of the most outstanding of cinemas at the time it was built and for years later. I bet the Woods would turn in their graves to know that.'

'It was a Bingo Club when I went there. I never went to the pictures there but if the building is anything to go by, it must have been one hell of a cinema.'

'You know I went to the last film show at the Palace, or was it the Odeon then? anyway, the last film had Peter Sellers in it and he played a vicar I think. It was quite sad for me and the rest of Bilston because it was like part of your own and the town's past was dying. It was just like when the Steel Works closed.'

Savoy

'It stood almost opposite the Alhambra I think. It was a small place and I don't think it was ever as popular as the other Bilston cinemas. It stood near where the Tesco is I think. It's funny isn't it but so many of the old cinemas either became Bingo Halls or Supermarkets.'

'I went to the Savoy in Bilston quite often. If you say the Savoy to anyone they think of the one in Wolverhampton but I never think of that one, it's always the Bilston one. It was quite small. It looked a bit like the Alhambra on the outside but I think it was much nicer inside. It showed a lot of very good films and most nights when I went, it was quite full.'

'If there was one picture house in Bilston that I remember it's the Savoy. The audience were always happy and the standard of films was pretty high. Probably not as good as the Palace but still pretty good for a small place like Bilston. Remember Bilston had about three or four cinemas.'

'The Savoy went the same way as all the others. It closed and with it's closure another nail in the coffin of Bilston as a separate little town went. It's a great shame that some of those planners don't actually live in the places they destroy.'

 

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