Sweets and the Pictures
Hi Gang,
Do you remember going to the pictures on a regular basis? I sorta miss those days. Now we go a couple or 3 times per year My mates & I never went to the cinema less than once a week, sometimes twice & occasionally more than that.
Remember those huge cinemas where the show changed 3 times per week, and they used to sell ice cream and orange drinks during the intermissions. One thing that I dislikes was all the smoking that went on. Do they still permit smoking in the Cinema in Britain?
When I was a small child, my mother would sometimes take me to a cinema (whose name escapes me) in Commercial St. I must have been a real chatterbox even in those days, for she took lots of monkey nuts (as we used to call peanuts) and sweets to feed to me to keep me from talking during the performance. I remember that I liked Bulls eyes, Liquorice Allspice, Aniseed Balls, and I was especially partial to Rowntrees Fruit Gums. I had a weakness for them even as I got older.
I determined the first time that I returned to England, after having been away for 9 years, that as soon as possible I was going to get me some Rowntrees, and I did on day 2. Somehow, either the recipe was different or my tastes in candy had changed. They just didn't taste the way that I had remembered. After chewing a few, I bit down on something hard. Removing the glutinous mess from my mouth, I found to my horror that I had removed the whole filling from one of my back teeth. I immediately dumped the Fruit gums, chewed & un-chewed into the first waste receptacle I came to. It was an expensive box of candy all right. When I went to my dentist upon returning to Baltimore I found that those Rowntrees Fruit Gums had cost me about $300.00.
Another thing that wasn't the way I had remembered was the English beer. I had always been partial to Makeson's Stout (sp). But, when I tried a glass of it on day 1. I found that I just couldn't seem to enjoy warm beer after getting used to cold beer. Does our tatebud memory play tricks on us, or what?
Be cool,
Gerry WIseman
Hello again,
Yes I remember the pictures, especially the tuppenny rush on Saturday afternnoons. That's where I was introduced to Tom Mix and Tony. He was my favourite cowboy for years. Never could come to terms with the singing ones. It seemed so out of place to me.
One of the special things about those megacinemas was the cinema organ, which used to appear from the bowels of the stage with the organist in full blast. The one at the Rialto cinema in Coundon was often on the wireless, the BBC Midland programme I remember. This made him a person of great fame locally. Later in life, while at the University of Birmingham, I joined The Society for the Abolition of the Cinema Organ.
We used to go to city cinemas and boo the organist. I'm not convinced it was because of our efforts but organs soon disappeared for good. What a shame!> And yes Gerry, tastes changes with age. our taste organs become less sensitive ,sometimes in specific areas.
I still love Rowntrees clear gums aand pastilles and all three of my kids love them. I used to bring British candy back from business trips.
They were always the most popular of gifts and I remember the kids used to hoard them, hide them from each other to make them last. Now I can get them anall sorts of British sweets, foods and all sorts of books, soaps,china, linen etc.etc. from a British shop in Seattle. Another shop in the famous Pike's Place Market keeps a.wonderful selection of British foods, like Branston Pickle and especially cheeses from all over Britain. I still love English beer .
It's brewed differently from US and Continental beers and loses much of it's flavour when chilled. Lagers need to be cold and become strongly ester tasting when warm. However Guinness are now producing stout to be drunk SLIGHTLY chilled. Have you come across the new cans with an insert which produces a stable head, just like draught when poured? The US is now producing some creditable beers at microbreweries although the Buds, Coors and Millers are no better than ever It's advertising, not taste, which sells them. My favorite bottled beer produced by a major brewery over here is Moosehead, which is brewed in Canada and has a real full hoppy flavor. What are your preferences, everyone?
Ralph Worthington
Sweets: Ah yes, Gerry; bulls eyes! And humbugs. And Mint Imperials. And Sherbet Lemons. And fruit gums.
Remember that sweets were priced on the jars by the quarter pound? We always asked for "A quarter of humbugs" or whatever, and that little white paper bagful was good for a whole evening of reading with one hand in the bag. I'm sure we never had enough pocket money to get half a pound of anything at a time, so how come 4 little ounces seemed to amount to so much, then? I mean, you get precious few of candies/sweets if you weigh out 4 ounces. Big mystery, that.
And the cinema: did anyone join their local "Saturday pictures" club? If so, did we actually pay to join? My brothers and I joined once, at the Tooting Grenada. We were, a chap onstage told us all, "The Tooting Granadiers!", and were expected to launch the entertainment session by collectively belting out the club theme song to the tune of the old military song "The British Grenadiers." Bedlam!
I attended two or three times but, being a quiet kid, I hated it, with the atmosphere of wild hooting, hollering, jeering or cheering at the villains and heroes on the screen - invariably cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, or slapstick comedy. I couldn't identify with any of the characters or plots, neither could I hear a word of dialogue. I soon became a Granadier deserter, and I believe the boys followed suit soon afterwards.
However, we had happier experiences with movies when Mum and Dad took us "to the pictures" quite frequently. That was always a great treat. On the whole it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours together as a family. The only problem was that many films were produced in America, and as the strange-sounding accent seemed almost a foreign language to me, much of the dialogue was lost on my young ears. I learned to be pretty adept at figuring out plot from action alone.
As far as I recall (someone correct me if I'm wrong) there was always a main feature and a shorter one, plus a ten minute newsreel, showing the latest of the world's goings-on.
It seems funny now, but we never seemed to know exactly what time the main film was supposed to start. Like most people, we would arrive whenever our bus delivered us there, and in the darkness be shown to our seats by a uniformed usherette with her little torch. Clambering over laps, if necessary, with the necessary "excuse me"s or "sorry!"s, we'd then settle down and do our best to catch on to whatever was taking place on screen, even if the film was half over. Then later, when we'd sat through the whole program and found ourselves back at the original spot, Dad or Mum would whisper "This is where we came in. Come on!" and out we'd troop. We got quite good at putting together the two ends of a story that had been separated by another film and a newsreel. Sometimes, if the where-we-came-in spot was close to the conclusion, we waited until the end before exiting. I'm not sure if the starting times of the main feature were ever published, or if our lackadaisical approach was simply the norm for everyone. Probably the latter, since there was never an intermission marking start or finish. If you had the staying power, there was nothing to keep you from sitting there for hours and watching everything over and over for as long as the projector was running. At least, that's how I remember the situation.
At first, all films were in black and white, of course, which detracted nothing from our enjoyment, and then later amazing "Technicolor" arrived to thrill us. Mum reminisced about the time the first "talkies" were made, and how people couldn't believe that films could actually be made to talk. Mum had to see it to believe it. And now here we were with Technicolor!
Whatever next?!
Frances
"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"Hi Frances,
You must have been among the well to do. All the sweets we ever bought were sold as" two ounces for a penny".
Remember the Cadbury hapenny milk chocolate bars? There was such a variety of sweets in pre-war days. They never seemed to recover after the war. I remember the rows and rows of big glass jars with screw tops, the choice was so great and the pennies so scarce!
I'ld spend minutes trying to decide how to invest my penny( or often only a half penny.) I know the shopkeeper could get quite exasperated, especially if the shop was full of other customers. Do you remember farthings and silver "joeys ' or threpenny bits.
So many items were "something and elevenpence three farthings" especially to sound cheaper. The joeys were originally silver. I still have a few which we still use to hide in the pudding at Christmas.
Hi Ralph,
"Well to do"? How about "just a bit younger" ? I was born in 1937, so have no memory of pre-war sweet buying, only post-war. I guess that by the time I had coins to rattle, the pricing, in our neighborhood, anyway, had gone to so-much per quarter.
Sometimes I went into Pratts, where Mr. & Mrs. P. never seemed all that thrilled to have customers, so my favorite sweet shop was across the road; The Jubilee, where the consistently-smiling lady always made us feel welcome to take all the time we needed to make the big decision. There was another shop, closer to school, named The Dainty. Here the lady was also a smiler, but she tended to thank us far too profusely for even the minor purchase. "Thanks very much dear. Ta. Thanks ever so. Thank you, love. Ta very much. Ta." All of that came out in a stream, between the time we handed over our pennies and the time she handed our sweet bag to us. If it hadn't been amusing, it would have been almost embrarrassing.
Every once in a while, when I'm visiting my brothers in England, one of us will come out with that same stream of thanks, in the same tone of voice as The Dainty lady, and fall all over ourselves with laughter. Ah well, at least the lady was trying hard, bless her heart, and it has earned her a place in our memories, all these years later.
Frances
"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"Does anyone remember when ice cream was reintroduced after the war?
The first ice cream that I remember being sold from bike carts was a choc ice on a stick (I think). They were charging the extortionate price of 9d for a bar. After some thought I tried one and it was awful. It tasted like soap; it was quite a while before I tried another.
For my money, the best ice cream around was Walls. Remember those paper wrapped cylinders of ice cream that they would unwrap & stick on a cornet? Of course, Lyons had pretty good icecream too.
Another thing that I just remembered was all those empty chocolate/ candy machines in the railway stations. I suppose that by now they have candy in them.
Ciao,
Gerry WIseman