Odeon Hounslow West

Hey Carole, I also went to Saturday matinee in this cinema in the 1960s. Would watch Flash Gordon amongst other movies. Went upstairs after the matinee some weeks for singing practise with a few others. The Wurlitzer organ was great as it rose from the depths before the performance. Saw Goldfinger here, my very first Bond movie. I used to walk to and from the cinema from where I lived in Cranford, not far from the Travellers Friend pub.

I used to go to the Ambassador school of dancing as well. Nice memories of line cha cha where we used to try to get opposite someone we fancied!

As a child I went to the Odeon cinema Hounslow West for the Saturday morning children's cinema.
In my teens I attended the Ambassador School of Dancing where I met my wife to be. The school was above the Odeon cinema which later closed down and became a supermarket. We were given the basic dancing instructions and as I remember we would form two lines, one for boys and one for girls. At the start of the music the two lines would form dance partners and away we would go. During the interval we would buy coca cola which was the in thing at that time. I don't remember the names of the dance instructors who UI think had been professional dancers.

The Odeon was my nearest cinema. I often went at weekends, sometimes on my own. I remember watching a black and white second feature when an announcement of JFK's assassination was flashed up on the screen. There was an audible intake of breath from the audience. I started going to the dancing school above the cinema in 1967, as one of the dance instructors worked at the same company and said that it was a good place to meet girls! My first partner became my wife. It was a beginner's class but we went on through the medal classes up to National Award. We have just celebrated our golden wedding.