Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive

In Summer 1995, Ashley Bird heard about Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain through Roxeth Local History Society in the London suburb of Harrow and offered to take part in the project, joining the eighteen core CCINTB informants based in and around Harrow. Mr Bird was born in 1917 in South Harrow, and lived there until the late 1930s. His father had been killed in action in World War One just two months before his birth, and his mother later married again--his stepfather, a builder, was the only father he knew. On leaving school at fifteen Mr Bird took a job as an office boy, and later in the 1930s worked for a gas company. After World War Two, he went into the horticulture business, jointly managing a garden centre. His interviews took place on 12 July 1995 and 26 July 1995 in the noisy milieu of Harrow Civic Centre.

Much of Mr Bird's first interview is devoted to reflections on cinemagoing, including his recollections of the coming of sound. He also muses on what life was like during the 1930s, especially in relation to the affordability of going to the pictures. Towards the close of the interview he shares some touching thoughts on old age and memory.

Mr Bird's further reflections on cinemagoing in his second interview are aided by looking through a 1938 film annual brought along by the interviewer. As he leafs through it, he discusses many stars of the period--over sixty film personalities are named in the course of the interview. He talks about his local area and recalls some of the activities he enjoyed as a boy, highlighting the strategies he and his friends devised for getting into the cinema for nothing. He recalls stars--including Jessie Matthews, Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert--who lived in the Harrow area. He calls attention to the animated films of the thirties, and points up the key role played by cinema newsreels during those pre-war years.

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