Entertaining Pitsea's People

A Memory of Pitsea.

I worked at the cinema (Then The Century) for 14 years as the chief projectionist. First in 1956 then when I came out of the forces in 1960 till it closed as a cinema. Pitsea had its own power house for electricity. It stood between the cinema and Tudor chambers and powered all of Pitsea including the war memorial the street light all the lights on the canopy around the shops all quite visible in the photo. When I first started at the cinema most of the power to run the projectors and emergency lighting came from the generators. It became my responsibility to run the generators. There were three in all a Ruston, Cross beam Crosley and a small standby one that was a tractor engine for lighting only. When the Cinema closed the owners (Granada) tolled me to destroy all the film I had in the projection room. This included the 1929/30 Pitsea and Vange carnival. I took this and gave it to a Mr Porter that ran a gents barbers in station Rd. He tolled me had played the bass drum that led the Carnival. That film is now stored in Norwich film archives As far as I know the Cinema is a enlisted building. As the Broadway it had a orchestra pit with a door way leading down under the stage. The pit was boarded over to make room for more seats.