Saturday Morning Cinema
NextBackSaturday morning matinee at the Gaumont Cinema was the highlight of my week, where for sixpence I could forget the reality of humping coke and escape into a fantasy world. Before the show began the Hammond organist seated at his console rose slowly and musically before us to the strains of 'All the nice girls love a Sailor' or 'The Teddy bears picnic'. Just before the show started the cinema manager would conduct us in a tuneless but jubilant rendition of the 'Saturday Morning Club' song, "We come along on Saturday mornings, greeting everybody with a smile” etc, during which stink bombs and fireworks were rolled down the aisles. On conclusion of the song the cinema lights were dimmed and along with two or three hundred boisterous children I cheered at the adventures of Johnny Mack Brown, Roy Rogers, The Cisco Kid, Tarzan and Tex Ratter, and watched in awe as Flash Gordon's rocket sputtered across the screen with sparks dropping vertically downwards, and booed lustily when the dreaded Ming urged his slaves on as they stoked his nuclear reactors with coal. Where did he get the coal, why didn't' he have to fetch coke every Saturday?
