Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive

In Autumn 1994, Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain Research Fellow Valentina Bold renewed contact with Hamiltonhill, a day centre in Possil, Glasgow where she had conducted interviews with several of its elderly users before joining the project. She arranged to carry out further interviews there for CCINTB, and five of the centre's clients were interviewed for CCINTB. John Shearer was among them. Mr Shearer was born in Kirkcudbright in 1914, one of nine children; his father was a baker, his mother a housewife; on leaving school at sixteen he took a job in a grocery, and his later occupations included cabinetmaker, seat fitter in a cinema, and driver.

On 18 November 1994, Mr Shearer took part in a five-way interview at Hamiltonhill, the other four interviewees being Lily (Lilian) Buik, Sarah Irvine, Nellie (Helen) Donaghy, and Davy (David) Paterson

Discussion during this 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.

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