STREETLY,
STAFFORDSHIRE MEMORIES
(1936
- 1961)
SUMMER EVENINGS
at the
AVION CINEMA, ALDRIDGE
(1940-1945)
by Chris Myers
|
|
SUMMER EVENINGS AT THE
AVION |
On the
odd summer's evening during the war
– probably with the vegetable plot
under control, no Home Guard duty
that night, the wireless offering
nothing special and the regular
letter to my elder brother in Italy
already written - Dad would look up
and say "Shall we go to the flicks?"
There was rarely any dissent and the
three of us (or even four if my
elder sister was so inclined) would
pedal off on our bikes from Streetly
towards Aldridge. Earlier on, I
would be perched on the little
parcel shelf on the back of my
father's Raleigh keeping my feet out
of the spokes whilst my mother
valiantly followed on behind,
seated up on high on her "sit up
and beg" 28-inch wheel machine with
its
basket on the front. Later on, I
graduated from my fairy cycle to a
proper bike of my own. We did have a
car but the essential user's
allowance of petrol didn't usually
stretch to extravagances such as
this.
The bikes would be left
leaning against the blank wall down
the left-hand side of the Avion
cinema. No padlocking. It was
probably only at that point that we
found out what the film was. Its
suitability for me didn't seem to be
a major source of worry. On just one
occasion Dad did say "Oh, this looks
like a gory one..." Of course, by
that stage, I knew that the world
was a dreadful place, full of
frightening things and nasty people.
The aim of every single German and
Japanese was to bump me off and, if
it were the latter, it would
probably be in a particularly
unpleasant way. These thoughts,
often the subject of bad dreams,
were a result of almost everything
of which I was aware, coming from
newspapers, the wireless and, no
doubt, previous visits to the Avion.
We must have seen many films
there, over the years, and I can
remember scenes from several of them
and some of their titles. Whilst we
must have seen comedy films, such as
Laurel and Hardy, and Disney
cartoons - and I would have
thoroughly enjoyed them at the time
- little of them remains in the
memory. Almost all the scenes which
I do remember are those which
frightened me, "the nasty bits" -
even those which appeared as I was
being nudged and told to shut my
eyes for the next bit.
.....
Fighting in the Far East with a line
of American soldiers forced back
onto a beach, the Japanese on the
edge of the jungle firing at them
and their only means of survival the
open sea behind them or dreadful
treatment as prisoners of war; dark
Victorian rooms, lit only by a
couple of guttering candles; an RAF
aircrew, evading capture in a dark
and threatening foreign city; men in
a lifeboat in the middle of the
Atlantic with little hope of rescue;
fear and murder in America with
tough guys and guns and violence;
scenes from the forbidding night of
the countryside, dark and
threatening, with swirling mist and
bells sounding from an empty church
and hideous murders; the Home Guard
dealing with a force of invading
paratroopers, disguised as British
troops, and one of our lads getting
shot; a Victorian soldier going
blind with heat-stroke and wandering
helpless in an alien, desert
landscape; a dreadful looking witch
handing a poisoned apple to Snow
White; even in a George Formby film
there were sinister, threatening
characters who were Germans and so I
remember nothing of the rest of the
film......
All pretty grim
stuff, doing nothing for the peace
of mind of a sheltered young boy.
There MUST have been some nice bits
in all these films but they haven't
stuck at all. I probably made it a
habit of ignoring the
incomprehensible, "sloppy" scenes
anyway. I still try to.
The
newsreels showed the real thing as
far as the war was concerned, of
course, but the rousing music and
commentaries made them so exciting,
whatever the subject matter, and
possibly they lacked the sort of
detail which was what really
frightened me. I watch the scenes as
Paris is being liberated only a few
days earlier, filmed
from an upper window - a wounded
German lying in the street having
his rifle torn from his hands by a
Resistance fighter, a grenade
exploding in an open truck full of
German soldiers. The rat-tat-tat of
machine guns, the running from
doorway to doorway .... it gets
right to the pit of my stomach, the
excitement of it all. I'm just
a timid eight-year-old but, oh, how I
wish I could be there.... Or do I,
really?
And finally we stand
for the National Anthem at the end
of the performance, together with
everyone else - no rushing for the
last bus, not here in rural Aldridge
- before filing out, blinking, into
the evening light. It's
probably still sunny because of
double summertime. Back to the bikes
- and they are always still there,
untouched - and off down the road to
Streetly. Mainly downhill, if I
remember correctly, and so an easy
ride.
After the grim scenes
on the Avion's screen the world and
its open fields and hedgerows seem,
at this moment and just for a while,
a far less threatening place.
POSTSCRIPT
Amongst the
films we probably saw were: "The
Four Feathers" (1939) and "Snow
White" (1937, but still being
shown), both in incredible,
breathtaking Technicolor. And,
perhaps fortunately in the normal
black and white,
"Target for Tonight" (1941);
"Went the Day Well?" (1942); "One
of Our Aircraft is Missing" (1942);
"San Demetrio, London" (1943);
"Guadalcanal Diary" (1943) -
the "gory one"; "The Scarlet Claw"
(1944) - even gorier, as it
happened. And no doubt many others,
together with the accompanying "B"
feature and, of course, the Pathé or
Gaumont newsreel.
(Image source: Cinema Treasures
website)
|
This family
and local history
page is hosted by
www.staffshomeguard.co.uk
(The Home Guard of Great Britain, 1940-1944)
Please see INDEX page for main acknowledgements.
All text and images are,
unless otherwise stated, © The Myers Family 2022
|
INDEX
Home Guard of
Great Britain
website |
 |
INDEX
Streetly and Family Memories
1936-61
|
L8Y - March
2024
|
