Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive

In February 1995, Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain contacted Thornlea Residential Home in Blackley, Greater Manchester, seeking potential participants in the project; and on 4 May six residents took part in a group interview. Two of them, Lily Sutcliffe and Elizabeth Woods, were later interviewed again, joining the project’s twenty-two core informants in the Greater Manchester area. Miss Sutcliffe was born in Manchester in 1917. She left school at fourteen, and her jobs included mill work and hospital work.

Along with Miss Sutcliffe and Miss Woods, participants in the group interview were Wilfred Sevlin (born 1913), Joe Dowlag (born 1928), Peter McDonough (born 1916), and Nelly (surname unrecorded, born 1915. All six had lived in Manchester all their lives. The interview opens with recollections of participants’ local cinemas, extending to ticket prices, queues, and the typical supporting programme--newsreels, cartoons, and so on--for the main feature. Miss Woods indicates that although there were several cinemas in her neighbourhood, she didn’t go to the pictures very often, though she would occasionally attend live shows or ‘big pictures’ along with workmates. Miss Sutcliffe recalls enjoying both films and music hall shows. Conversation turns to film stars, with a focus mainly on local celebrities, including Gracie Fields and Robert Donat; and to alternative amusements such as dancing, prompting memories of the Saturday evening ‘dance train’ to Blackpool.

Miss Sutcliffe’s solo interview, which took place at Thornlea on 29 May 1995, begins with naming and discussion of some of the cinemas close to where she lived—she recalls going to the pictures four or five times a week. Money was tight, she says, but it didn’t cost much to get in. The stars she liked included Edward G. Robinson and Laurel and Hardy, as well as local celebrities Gracie Fields and George Formby, and she recalls enjoying gangster and horror films. She talks about childhood games she used to play outdoors and the household duties she was called upon to do to assist her visually impaired mother. Conversation reverts to cinemas, seat prices, and the typical cinema programme. Towards the close of the interview, Miss Sutcliffe talks the interviewer through the family photos on display in her room.

---