Newcastle Upon Tyne

St Vincents orphanage - re Henry Ritchies memory

My father (same name) was there between 1933-41 and also has many memories. Talk to him if you are able to start his memory cells. e mail:     norman.phillipson@talktalk.net

ON BEING A CINEMA MANAGER!!

Having written the last article on Children’s Matinees so many memories flitted through my brain, so I had to write them down! And no doubt I shall add to them over the weeks.

Going back to the old Corona at Felling, I just remembered that I was very young fresh out of the Navy and full of my own importance! And didn’t know anything! My first day there was hard to forget, I went into the stalls and walked down towards the stage and this cleaner called Annie came out of the toilet she had been cleaning and shouted at me to get off her still wet mopped floor down the isle she came running at me waving her dirty wet mop at me and I shouted “But I am the manager!” “So what?” she shouted back. So I got out of there quickly back to my tatty little office and hid till she had gone! Good start to my first day! That evening standing on the front of house steps with the doorman (who was an ex policeman and very big with it!!) in the late evening sun I told him that I wanted the house lights to come up when the intervals were on. So off he went muttering to himself, and from then on for over two weeks the audience dropped of to a trickle.

One night I was bemoaning the fact that there was no one in the hall and he said “Well you silly b-----r! It’s all your fault!” “Why?” I asked “Well no b-----r comes here with his own wife! And they don’t want to be lit up by you!! So put the lights out!” and I did and within a week we were back to packed houses!

I was told to put the ‘house full’ and ‘queue here’ signs out on the pavement if we were empty inside and we would get a good second house!

I was told to always put the heating up high 20 minutes before the ice cream girls went out to sell, now that could double your sales!!! The other thing was that if it was a children’s show you put lollies and cheep choc bars on the trays. The same applied to sweets! Children wanted gob stoppers and wine gums and so on If it was a posh show or film then it would be exotic tubs and Parfaits.

OFF TO SCHOOL I GO!!

It’s so strange that you can remember so many things from early childhood, all those years ago! And it still feels clear as if it was yesterday and they bubble up into your brain after lying there undisturbed in the pits of time with no effort from you..,such as finding a jar of Pond’s Vanishing Cream on the dressing table in Mother's bedroom and thinking, ok I will try it out! Stripping off and spreading it all over my little body and going downstairs and opened the door to the lounge very quietly and going in, Mother and her friends were playing Bridge and me being invisible I knew they could not see me, so why are they laughing? After being frog marched out of the room, smacked and scrubbed down, I was told that it was NOT that sought of cream! Was I really that silly?
When I was five Mother burnt my Teddy Bear on the fire and packed me and my trunk off to boarding school. It must have been something to do with me wanting to go off into the Royal Navy and fight the Germans! I only went home twice in all those years ...

Dad owned 36 cinemas and 5 theatres in the north of England, he was also head of Forces entertainment in the war years, a body called ENSA. My God Mother was Gracie Fields, I am told that I peed on her lap when a baby (what a start to life!!, if you read my blog you will see how I got started in Pantomime! (like father like son). Mother was a very strange person, she used to wash all her money and hang it up to dry in the bathroom! And she carried with her always a little scent spray bottle BUT it was filled with Dettol! And she would spray the seat in the car before she would get into it and also did that with the tram or train seats! And God could she drink sherry! That's why I never came home at holiday time, as I must have got in the way of her drinking habit. Dad left her quite early on. They had met on the stage in Sir Charles Froman's production of 'Are You A Mason', he had the main part of Amos Bloodgood and she was in the chorus and thier eyes locked as he went one way across the bridge as she and the chorus went across the other way. Very strange to say but she liked to lock me in the coal shed! So boarding school became a way of life! But thats another story...

THE PASSING OF A GRAND OLD THEATRE

The old Grand Theatre at Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne was one of well over 65 theatres and cinemas in the city in the heyday of entertainment.

Kenneth More in repertory, Winifred Atwell playing her first date in England, Bobby Thompson and the Merry Magpies, The Tattler Girls, many many Pantomimes, Revues and Variety Shows, Musical Comedy, the list could go on for ever of those who tread the boards of the Grand!

I grew up in the place! I was often told that I caused many BAD moments as a child! (Read my blog!) My dad ran the place and I was there at the end of its days as a very young House Manager together with my cousin Steve and Babs Davidson with Patrick Dowling’s Repertory Company's production of ‘Night Must Fall’.

Having signed a great many ‘last tickets’ the evening came to an end and we stood at the footlights and said farewell to the audience of 62 old folk, three of them having helped to build the theatre all those years ago. Smoky the theatre cat came down to the footlights and gazed up at the rows of dark empty seats for the last time ... as Patrick Dowling said to the audience “As night must fall on our play so it must also fall on this wonderful old theatre” and looking at Smoky sitting on a footlight and gazing at the rows of seats he muttered that “Even the cat knows it is the end”. By now there was not a dry eye in the house and it had to be the worst night of my life. If you have never had to close a living theatre you could never imagine how it hurts. The following morning I stood on the empty stage with only the cleaner’s lights on and watched the seats being stripped out to go to yet another Bingo Hall. I stayed for a long time just listening to the ghosts stirring in the cold shadows.

NB. As there was the Viaduct Pub over the road and a fishcake factory behind the theatre I would like to think that Smoky lived well after we had all gone. (No, she was not prepared to be caught, try as we did!).

Has anyone got a good photo of the theatre?

St Vincent de Paul Orphanage in Brunel Street

I spent 10 years in this orphanage, with many memories. Was anyone else there from 1931-1941, or does anyone have any information or photos?

OH YES HE IS! OH NO HE ISN''T!!!!

(ANOTHER PANTO STORY)

It’s like some eureka moment from no ware! Out of the fog of time come more memories of the early days in theatre, this time yet another Panto story.
We were doing Aladdin in a large theatre in the north, packed to the last seat in the Gods with happy children and their mums and dads. Now long since gone like so many happy places you remember with fondness from younger days.

Now Ebenazer was played this year by an old Shakespearian actor who felt he was a bit above all this slapstick tomfoolery! But he made the best of it and soon got the audience shouting “Oh no he isn’t!” and “Oh yes he is!” and “Look behind you!” and hissing and booing for all they were worth! So he was well into his stride and forgetting that he was quite old he dashed around the stage like a mad hatter! Having a great time and enjoying every moment!

In the interval Old Ebenazer went back to his dressing room and tucked into a glass of stout and chips and just as he got up to go back he collapsed backstage and died in front of the cast. The stage manager said that the show should go on with the understudy for Ebenazer, it was agreed that you can’t let down about 2000 paying customers. So the Principal Girl dressed all in white was told to go through the curtains down to the footlights and explain what had happened.

I can still see it in my mind's eye even now as she said “Ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls I have some bad news to tell you! In the interval Ebenazer has had a heart attack and has died”. At this point the audience cried out as one “Oh no he isn’t!!!”. “Oh yes he is!” shouted back the little Principal Girl. “Oh no he isn’t!!” shouted the audience. So that was that then - the show went on! And old Ebenazer lives on in our memories for ever.

It's Panto Time! Oh yes it is!

You ever been to a panto? Oh yes you have!!! Remember! You go into a large packed hot old theatre full of sticky shouting children and adults trying to look as if they are not enjoying themselves. The house lights dim and the orchestra comes out into the orchestra pit and they settle down, resplendent in dinner suits that have seen better days and tune up the instruments and sit waiting for the Conductor.
Right!
Now let me fill you in with what happens on this cold December night’s production of 'Dick Whittington' many years ago when theatre and panto was still in its heyday. The theatre is now hushed and if you look at the stage you can see the stage lights under the hem of the stage curtain and shadowy feet moving into position ready for ‘Overture and Beginners’ as its called. The Conductor in his best white tie and tails climbs up onto his rostrum, shuffles his music, coughs and raises his baton, taps it on the music stand light and off we go! The curtains open and there before us is the full chorus line singing and dancing while the Principal Boy makes her way down to the footlights and, smiling at the audience, slaps her thigh and asks if all the boys and girls are pleased to see them? 'YES!' they all shout ... except for one little chap in the front row who is sick! Not just sick BUT SICK! All over the orchestra ... Well, that was the end of that.
How can you continue when all the vomit is dripping of the piano keys, violins and some of the orchestra could not see out of their glasses? So the curtains close and the orchestra members go off to change and the cleaners come on and wash down the band parts and seats and instruments.
Then off we go again! The orchestra comes back looking decidedly unhappy in polo neck sweaters and sports coats and one in a raincoat! Overture and Beginners ... This time all goes well ... until (remember we are doing 'Dick Whittington') the scene in front of the large fire in the baronial hall kitchen and the Principle Girl is sitting on a chair with the Cat (another girl in a cat skin) draped across her lap. The next line as she stroked the cat was ‘Alas poor pussy, no Dick tonight!’ and that was about the end of the panto, 2,000 odd Mums and Dads were in hysterical laughter while the kids wanted to know what they were laughing at! Every time we tried to bring back order some one corpsed or giggled and off they all went again!
Now that was a night to remember!!!
NB. Back in those days the Lord Chamberlain's office was responsible for censorship of all scripts before they went into production and any lines he did not like had a blue pencil drawn through the offending passage and that was that! But he had missed that line. It’s worth knowing that’s how Jack Warner got to be called Blue Pencil Warner long before he became 'Dixon of Dock Green'.

Now We Are Five!

Ah well here goes!
The old Grand Theatre plays a very large part in my early years (you will find I go on a bit about the place!).
My dad owned the Grand and my first recollection of it was at pantomime time. Dad's Chorus Mistress said I could dance on with the other little children in the juvenile chorus. I had been in most of the dressing rooms that day and as my dad was there I had been treated to a few potato chips in one room some fudge in another and a bit of cake in another and a sip of stout ... and so on.
Being full of excitement and food I linked arms with the other children and danced on to the stage to a packed house! And as we danced along behind the Principle Boy doing her opening song I WAS SICK as I went past her! And I can still remember as it all trickled down her legs what she said 'You little s**t, wait till I get hold of you!!'. But being a true trooper she never lost the smile on her face as she carried on for the crowd who were by now in hysterics ...

Moving on 3 years. I got thrown out one night, as I was bored I went off to explore under the stage an area known as the SUMP and guess what? I found an old peddle harmonium. So I had to try it out, didn't I? And guess what, it still worked and made this awful wailing noise. The Stage Manager came down and dragged me up to back stage by my hair and sent me packing home with death threats if I ever came back!
What must have been strange to the audience was the fact that a death scene was being played out on the stage ... thought I had made a significant contribution to the mood of the piece.

Now aged 12 sitting in one of the boxes front of house and falling head over heels with the B*****l Twins as they were called as they did a tassel dance, when you're 12 that is 'gob smacking', how did they get them to change direction?? They looked so beautiful.
You forget that as you gaze through the proscenium arch to the stage you are looking at a fantasy. So when I went back stage in the interval they were standing there, old and tired in thread-bare costumes and caked make-up and they were so small and strange and one had a little round Elastoplast on her bum!!
So that was the end of that romance!

SWEET SIXTEEN

Memories of First Dates


When I was young and very green! , no let’s say not worldly wise! Even know I could die with embarrassment looking back on my attempts to emulate the big screen stars.

My Dad owned a lot of cinemas and naturally I spent a lot of time in them, so learning how it was done (kissing that is!) The first kiss I had makes me still cringe, I spent 2 minutes kissing her bottom lip and chin before I realized I was in the wrong place, the next one I kissed I thought she was going to be ill when lips glued together she opened her mouth I panicked and ran off as I had never heard of 'French kissing'.

Or, how about sitting in the Circle back row of the local cinema kissing...we had had lots of sweets and ice cream and I had smoked a lot of Woodbine cigarettes and I was sick all over the back of this chap in front of us, he went mad! turning around and grabbing me round the neck of my polo neck sweater and lifting me up into the path of the projected film and gave me what for while my little head was stuck in the window and 1,500 people in the audience were shouting and stamping on the floor as all they could see was the outline of my head on the screen and not Roy Rogers! Never did see her again..........

Or what about the sophisticated one in the Fenwick Tea Rooms on a Saturday morning, sitting opposite each other and I did the full bit of lighting two cigarettes together as seen on the big screen and starting to give her the one on the left when it got stuck on my bottom lip and my fingers slipped and traveled down the cigarette and pulled the hot glowing end off and it flew across the table and went down her cleavage, God did she move! and I had was a bleeding lip with bits of blood stained cigarette paper still glued to my lip and  two burnt fingers. Never did see her again..............

Or the infamous Saturday at the Oxford Galleries Ballroom dance leaning over the balcony with a rather large busted girl I had just had a dance with and as her left breast rested on my arm we kissed and I sneezed and brought my hand up to cover my mouth (as you do) and trapped her breast in the crook of my arm squeezing it very hard, she screamed and all the people on the dance floor looked up in horror!!! I was mortified and yes you have guessed it! I never did see her again.......

You never forget the pleasures and pain of youth do you? And I don't mind anyone knowing who I am for they will be sure to know who they were.