ABC NEW ROYAL CINEMA, ASHTON NEW ROAD, BRADFORD, MANCHESTER 11.
We like to laugh and have a sing song,
Such a happy crowd are we,
We’reall pals together,
We are the minors of the ABC.”
Sitting in the magically expectant dark on Saturday afternoons with Alec and Kevin and Linda, carefully eating my [not cheap] small bag of cashew nuts bought from Mrs. Macs [who always gave a couple extra, she said, especially in front of my mother], waiting for “South of Pago Pago” or “George Formby” or “Old Mother Riley” and a cartoon. Then we would gallop home, our raincoats fastened by one button at our necks flowing out like capes, because in the osmotically imaginative and clandestinely dreamtime space we had become members and compardres of Zorro’s Fighting Legion, even Linda. The cinema where, as a five year old, I laughed so hard at Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” the surrounding punters were laughing at me laughing, [to the chuffed amazement of my Dad].
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