Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive

In Autumn 1994, Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain Research Fellow Valentina Bold renewed an earlier contact with Hamiltonhill, a day centre in Possil, Glasgow where she had conducted interviews with some of its elderly users before joining the project. She arranged to carry out further interviews, and five of the centre's clients were interviewed for CCINTB. Nellie (Helen) Donaghy was among them. Mrs Donaghy was born in 1910 in Townhead, Glasgow, one of fourteen children; her father worked on the railway and her mother was a housewife; she left school at the age of fourteen and worked as a waitress. On 18 November 1994, she took part in a five-way interview at Hamiltonhill, the other four interviewees being Lily (Lilian) Buik, Sarah Irvine, Davy (David) Paterson, and John Shearer; and on 3 March 1995 three of the five (herself, Mrs Irvine, and Mr Paterson) were interviewed again. Both interviews took place at Hamiltonhill Day Centre.

Discussion during the first interview centres mainly on the range and variety of cinemas in the Glasgow area, with recollections of the buildings' interior features and the various forms of entertainment on offer, as well as reflections on the behaviour of cinemagoers. Other leisure pursuits, such as children’s games and dancing, are also remembered.

In the second interview, the three participants add further recollections of Glasgow cinemas they frequented, with details of strategies employed to avoid paying for admission; rowdy audience behaviour at Saturday matinees; shouting at the cliffhangers that concluded episodes of serials; singalongs with song lyrics displayed on the screen; silent films with piano accompaniment and audience members contributing sound effects. Over forty film personalities are alluded to in the course of the interview, with lively debate about the merits of some, including singing duo Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy and popular male stars Wallace Beery and George Raft.

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