Until I was 13 we lived in a tiny village. Trips to the cinema were occasional, very exciting treats. These happened when we were away on holiday and also in our nearby small town, five miles away, in a very small independent cinema in a converted chapel. The man who ran it used to get the big films of the time – a year or two after they’d been shown in the big towns. We didn’t mind waiting! Occasionally, when a really good family film came to our town we’d get in the car as a family and go and see it. I remember us going to see Swiss Family Robinson and the cinema was absolutely packed with people standing and sitting on windowsills. It was the same when Tom Jones arrived.
When I was a teenager, and we’d moved to the town, I would go weekly to the cinema with my friends. We didn’t mind what we saw! The most popular, of course, were the ones we’d read all about in magazines like the Bond films, Georgy Girl, Alfie and Ben Hur.
Cinemas in those days had just one screen, although many town (not ours!) had more than one cinema. There was always an A film, the one you went to see, plus a B film which was shown first. In the intermission the ice cream vendors walked down the aisles with their trays of drinks, tubs and choc ices. There were adverts played in the intermission. In my small home town the ads were stills promoting local businesses, particularly the coach company the cinema proprietor and projectionist drove for in the daytime. People were allowed to smoke in cinemas, and a huge proportion of the population smoked.
For both Zulu and The Sound of Music, we took a day trip to Cardiff to see them when they were still new.
TV
Once we had television, in the early 60s, we could watch old films at home. In black and white and on a very small screen!
Who could have imagined that by the 1980’s most of us would have VHS recorders and would be renting videos? Or that we would race on from there through DVDs to streaming? Even more so, it would have been impossible back then to imagine being able to watch films and TV on pocket-sized gadgets. These gadgets are known to us as phones but they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the early phone of the 1950s, either in appearance or capabilities.
Images courtesy of Google Images. Facts double-checked through Wikipedia. I make every effort to avoid infringing copyright. However, if anyone objects to any of the content in my posts get in touch directly with me and it will be removed.
Childhood Memories of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. 
Lovely post with such beautiful movieposters – we don’t see that kind of artwork anymore!
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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What a great article! I recall the local cinema in the small town in the west of England where I was born and the first film I saw there: Scott of the Antarctic, about Captain Robert Falcon Scott and the race to the south pole.
Later, I recall schools having a trip to the cinema to see the film of the queen’s coronation, in full colour, and evidently for the millions of people who (like us) did not have television.
A trip to the cinema was always an exciting event.
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Hello! It’s great to have such a lovely, positive comment. Thank you so much for following my humble little blog. Comments like yours make it worthwhile. We obviously lived through similar times.
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In Toronto in the early 60s and prior to cable TV, the late news (11:00 pm) was followed by the late show On Friday and Saturday nights there was also the late, late show. All were old movies. Then came the national anthem – American or Canadian depending on the channel – then broadcasting shut down and the test pattern took over. Seems quite quaint today.
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I remember our test card very clearly, with the little girl in the middle. And the national anthem before shut down. It must have been the way many countries did it if it was the same in Toronto. As you say, it all seems very quaint now.
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If memory serves, I believe our test pattern contained an Indian head in profile in the centre. Not positive about this, but perhaps others might know.
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The main one I remember is the little girl drawing on a blackboard. But maybe we had different versions at different times?
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The one I recall in the UK was a pattern of some kind. The one with the Indian in profile, complete with headdress, was in Canada. I seem to recall that, in those days of rabbit ears, the pattern was often quite out of focus. (Or, perhaps I was.)
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I’ve just looked it up! There is a Wikipedia entry entitled List of BBC Test Cards and it’s very interesting. The one I remember best was introduced in 1967 specifically to test in colour – although at home we only saw it in black and white until we got colour a few years later. The pattern ones which came before are all shown and I remember them now. Although it’s the one with the girl in it which I remembered first. Years ago, I would have had to go to the reference section in the library to look all that up!
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It seems there’s nothing you can’t look up these days. I will check it out -thanks for the information!
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