The Tower & The Blue Bird Cafe

A Memory of Lee.

I remember the Tower Cinema in the late 1940s, the Saturday afternoon kids' show. Later in the early 1950s I went three times a week, as there were three programes each week, Monday to Wednesday then Thursday to Saturday and old films on a Sunday. We did not have a TV until the mid 1950s. Once I had left school I went to the Tower Ballroom on a Saturday night and to Bert Sharp, also once a month on a Thursday there would be a special dance with Art & The Band Wagoners, this band did all the American air bases and played all the latest music and featured the song that was top of the hit parade. The one I remeber was 'Diana' (must have been September 1957).
The Blue Bird Cafe I remember way back when it had just opened in the late 1940s or early 1950s. It was styled on an American Ice Cream Parlor, in the summer then it had tables and bright coloured sun shades. In the end of the 1950s it became a haunt of the motorcycle and scooter riders.