Sarah Neely’s report on two workshop events that took place at the Glasgow Women’s Library, 5 December 2020 and 15 January 2021

In addition to ensuring the digital accessibility of the materials gathered as part of the earlier project, Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain, the current project is also interested in encouraging further engagement with the collection. This includes making the material accessible to academic researchers, but also artists, creative practitioners, and the wider public. The project includes artist residencies which will explore the ways in which the collection can inspire new works of creative writing, moving image and audio works. We are also hosting a series of creative writing workshops which are open to the general public and are designed to introduce participants to some of the items in the collection, and hopefully stimulate their own creative responses to it.

The creative writing workshops will be held throughout the UK, in the locations where the fieldwork for the original project was conducted – Glasgow, Manchester, London and East Anglia. Although we had originally intended to host the workshops in person, the current pandemic has meant that at least the first few will have to be delivered online. The first two workshops, generously hosted by Glasgow Women’s Library in December 2020 and January 2021, were facilitated by GWL’s Donna Moore and myself, with excellent front-of-house support from Rachel Moir. The workshops featured as part of Creative Writing for Fearties, an ongoing series of workshops held by GWL, which aims to create a conducive writing environment for all – from the complete beginner to the more experienced writer.

If you have ever had the opportunity to visit the library, you will know what a welcoming and inspiring place it is to be. Although I wasn’t entirely sure how well an intimate writing workshop would translate on Zoom, Donna Moore did an incredible job capturing a sense of the nurturing space of the library through her own imaginative and supportive approach to facilitating the workshop. Both were productive sessions, with around a dozen participants in each, many of whom were happy to share their work with the group. It was great to see many of those who attended the first workshop, return for the second, and to see how their ideas developed.

Each session included a number of short exercises which drew from a different item in the collection. The majority of exercises engaged with short extracts from the project’s rich collection of interviews, but some exercises also incorporated various memorabilia such as cigarette cards.

What follows is a selection of some of the exercises and the writing created in response to them, which has been kindly shared by some of the workshop participants. Enjoy!

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Saturday Matinee

For the first exercise participants were asked to respond to a poem read by one of our respondents, Mary McCusker, during her interview in 1994. The poem, ‘Saturday Matinee’, by Edith Little, published in the book When Sixpence was a Fortune (Heatherbank Press, 1978), offers the writer’s own, personal description of the experience of going to the cinema in Glasgow in the 1930s.

You can hear Mary McCusker reading the poem here:

The following presents a selection of the workshop participants’ personal reflections on their own memories of cinemagoing.

“Oh mister, gonny let us in?”

I remember this so well from my own childhood in Beith, Ayrshire, and standing outside the now-demolished George Cinema. Saturday matinees were an important feature of my life, and I couldn’t wait for the next one to come around.

One particular Saturday stands out, and the memories are bittersweet. It was 1982, and the very last film shown in the George. Things had changed and the advent of the video recorder put many of the old picture houses out of business, including my local. I queued up outside with most of the town, it seemed, to see E.T. Excitement was high as it was the must-see film of the year. I couldn’t wait to get inside.

As the show time neared, the cinema manager appeared to unlock the double glass door. I can still picture him. A big, very round man in a shirt and tie.

We queued to get our wee paper tickets, then queued again for sweeties. My dad took me that day, and he was just as excited as I was. I remember that wee sweetie kiosk so vividly. A packet of Munchies and a glass bottle of Coke in hand, I ran up two flights to the balcony. I only got to go to the balcony if my dad took me. Such wonderful memories.

by Karen McIntosh

Cinema Days

My cinema going life began with my grandmother in the late 1950s and what a magical surprise it all was.

I loved the rich velvet curtains with braided gold tassels that swung aside at the beginning of each film. I loved the smell of pipe smoke, perfume, hair oil and dust. I loved the feel of the plush seats under my bare legs and the arrival of the ice-cream girl with her torch and frilly apron that heralded the Interval.

I remember the building, the shell shaped lights, the grand staircases and gilded handrails that scrolled along the walls. I remember the thick carpet under my feet but I’ve forgotten all of the films we saw apart from one – Samson and Delilah. Victor Mature was about to be blinded but I never saw it because my grandmother silently put her hand across my eyes.

by Diane Schofield

Prose Piece

I think a few old decaying small cinemas still existed in tiny wee remote towns in the 1980s. Grown- ups talked about the luxury of the cinema with marble, lush chairs and curtains sliding across the screen. Oh, and of course, intermissions. But I have only one memory of curtains at the cinema. Possibly my first trip with my aunt and cousins, probably we saw a Disney movie.

Other early memories of birthday and back-to-school trips include the time I persuaded my parents to sit right at the front. Oh, what a mistake that was. Also, there was the time the Guide leaders took us to a 12 certificate film. I wasn’t quite legal, but mum was there. It must have been alright. And, finally, dating in and at the cinema. The darkness and privacy: oh, what a delight.

Oh, by-the-way I don’t like the cinema anymore. It’s too loud, too cold, too expensive and not right.

Before lockdown it was mum and dad who were telling us tales of their weekly trips to “Golden Oldies” screenings.

By Doreen

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A Plateful of Peas

For this exercise, we asked participants to respond to an extract from an interview with Margaret Young and Mollie Stevenson, two sisters from Cambuslang, Glasgow. In the interview, they recall going to the Elder Cinema and one particularly memorable occasion when they went for a ‘plateful of peas’ before a rather queasy tram journey home. Recalling the event, Margaret describes: “coming all the way from Govan to Riddrie on a yellow tram, through Bridgeton Cross. By the time we got home I was, I think I was green!” You can listen to the full interview here.

A short prose piece and poem inspired by the sisters’ vivid description follows below.

“I didn’t eat peas for years after that.”

Inside the picture house, watching those Hollywood movies, I felt like a film star too. The colours, the glamour, the beautiful women. Katherine Hepburn, with her haughty, slightly androgenous air. Ginger Rogers, with legs that twirled expertly around the dance floor. Bette Davis, scary yet vulnerable. I lapped it up. It was my escape.

I wanted it to go on forever. But it couldn’t, of course. As I stepped outside, into the grey, soot-ridden streets of Govan, Hollywood was gone. Not for me champagne and caviar. A plate of peas, and a long tram-ride home, back to drab and dreary Glasgow. But that two hours on a Friday kept me going all week, with dreams of something more, of life beyond our town.

by Karen McIntosh

Mushy peas and scabby knees

After the pictures,
me and my sister would
come out, from dark to light;
two moths flying backwards.
Cowboy images were still playing
on the inside of my eyelids.
We’d hold sweaty palms
so as not to lose each other,
as the crowds spilled out.
But also to keep the story going,
squeezed in between us
that while longer.
Our mother always bought us
mushy peas after.
She always said they were our favourite.
And we’d never tell her otherwise,
so as not to ruin the magic.
But we’d regret it every time.
After two winding tram rides home,
sat together on the same seat,
and me and my sister
were as green as the peas.

By Amy B. Moreno

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B-E-R-G-N-E-R

We returned to Mollie and Margaret’s memories of cinema in our second workshop. Listening to the two sisters’ interview sometimes feels like you are eavesdropping on a lifelong conversation about the cinema. In an extract used for one of the workshop exercises, their familiarity with each other is echoed in the patterns of their speech as the two try to work out the name of Austrian-British actress, Elizabeth Bergner. You can listen to the extract from the interview here (Note: interviewer’s voice is a little faint):

Below is an entertaining reimagining of what could have been another one of the sisters’ conversations.

Molly and Margaret

Molly: D’ yi’ mindae where your John always went oan his holidays when he was wee? Ah wis thinkin’ aboot aw they stories he use tae tell the other day.

Margaret: It wis, eh… it wis wae an auld spinster auntie cried Euphemia.

Molly: Euphemia! Oh aye… whit a name.

Margaret: Dundee, wis it no?

Molly: A summer holiday in Dundee?!

Margaret: Aye. Well, beggers cannae be choosers, Molly. Ye take a holiday whur yur given one. He use tae talk aboot the watter in Dundee.

Molly: Fishin’?

Margaret: Fishin’, paddlin’. Rock pools an’ that.

Molly: … In Dundee?

Margaret: Aye, that’s whit Ah said. Dundee.

Molly:

Margaret: Dinnae look it me like that, Molly, Ah’m no doddery. No yet, oneywey.

Molly: Fair enough.

[pause]

Margaret: Naw. No Dundee.

Molly: Naw?

Margaret: Naw.

Molly: Wis is Dunoon, hen?

Margaret: Aye, it wis Dunoon right enough.

Molly: Aye, Dunoon.

[pause]

Margaret: Ah wis right aboot Euphemia, but. Whit a name.

By Amy B. Moreno

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Film Stars and Cigarette Cards

The Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive collection also holds a selection of memorabilia donated by some of those who took part in the earlier project. This includes collections of cigarette card and photograph albums. For the workshops at Glasgow Women’s Library, Donna Moore sent participants a selection of items in advance of our workshop – including cigarette cards from Donna’s own personal collection! – which formed the basis for one of the writing exercises. Here are two more responses from Amy B Moreno and Karen McIntosh. While they are two very different approaches to the exercise, both wonderfully capture a sense of the ways in which the mystery and glamour associated with the object of the cigarette card, and the stars featuring on them, often sat incongruently with the everyday reality of their collectors.

Valerie Hobson

Ah’ve paid mah penny fur the ‘attractive album’. Today, Ah got Valerie Hobson. Ah took the card fae Uncle Jim’s packet, along wae two crumpult fags. Ah wish Ah looked lik her; that way she’s beautiful withoot smiling. I bet naeb’dy ever tells her, “Cheer up, hen, it might never happen.”

How does she get hur hair tae sit like that? The weather and mah mammy’s kitchen scissors conspire tae create the damp pudding bowl on mah heid. Ahm gonnae practice mah signature like hurs – a strong, elegant V. Then the E and I that loop aff each other, holdin’ hands as if they’re walkin’ down some romantic tree-lined avenue, oan dainty feet.

Ah bet she doesnae have six little brothers and sisters, and half ae them in her bed every night. Ah bet she doesnae need tae steal fags aff her uncle Jim.

By Amy B Moreno

Prose Piece

Having the right name is so important for a film star. Take Diana Dors. Now, there’s a perfect name for an actress, especially one as glamorous as Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe.

Would either woman have made such a splash as Diana Fluck or Norma Jean Baker? I doubt it.

You’ve got to imagine a name up in lights. Alliteration works when it comes to impact – Charlie Chaplin, Bogart and Bacall…..

by Karen McIntosh

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Many thanks again to Donna and the team at Glasgow Women’s Library, and to all of the workshop participants, especially those who gave permission to share their work here. If you are interested in participating in one of our workshops, please keep an eye on our website and/or Twitter feed. Details of any future events will be posted there. In the meantime, feel free to explore the collection online. We hope that you will find something to inspire your own writing!