Cinema Idols !!
There might be some who know me who would argue that I still haven't grown up, & they might be right, however.. to answer your question. I can't really remember having any screen idols per se. I did enjoy Bing, Bob & Dorothy pics, also Abbott & Costello & 3 Stoogies, and one of our favorites of course was Danny Kaye. I also liked westerns starring Buck Jones, Hopalong Cassady, and others of that ilk. At that time little did I dream that I would ever actually visit Hollywood, I did though, whilst my kid was living in a tiny apartment while attending University Of Southern Calif. Law School.
Talk at ya later,
Gerry WIseman
Screen idols, William? Like Gerry, I had no idols, but when I reached my early teens, I did think Doris Day was great, and tried to sing like her. I thought I was doing an impeccable job, until my brother innocently asked me who I was trying to be (he knew I certainly wasn't being myself
). I answered "Doris Day of course!" and was crushed when he laughed. A non-malicious laugh, but one that brought me back to earth with a bump. Right after that he and I worked up a little song and dance duet that we sang in the front room, holding the poker as a mike, and using the song that starts "Let's walk thata way, not thisa way..." I think it was a Doris Day special, and I certainly used my Doris voice to sing it.
Two years ago, when we were visiting my brothers and sisters-in-law in Cornwall, we six we walking through the woods when someone happened to point to an alternative path and said "Let's walk that way." Memories sprung to life immediately, John and I looked at each other knowingly. We took up our old positions, he said "a one, a two, a three..." and we launched into the old song and dance, from beginning to end, while the others stood around shaking their heads, wondering where it was all coming from. The odd thing is, I didn't sound at all like Doris this time around (can't think why), but John's voice has mellowed beautifully over the years.
By my mid teens, I was developing a taste for what I called "good actors" -- Alec Guiness, Joan Plowright, Lawrence Olivier, Peter Ustinov. All that seems a very long time ago (as it is, come to think of it), so it amazes me to find myself still going to an occasional movie that stars Joan Plowright, who has only improved with age, and to enjoy another of Peter U.'s travel specials on television. Last night it was his "In the Steps of Mark Twain." Somehow, having those two still alive and working makes me feel a lot younger than my 62 years!
Frances
"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"
Hi Gang Old Movies, now that is a trip down memory lane.
I personally hadn't been to a cinema until after the war, late in 1945. Visiting grandparents for a post war family get together near Chichester in Sussex, an uncle from Scotland took me into nearby Chichester in Sussex for my introduction to the big screen! We saw Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman in "The Bells of St. Mary's"!!
I was 9 years old and enthralled with the experience, immediately wanting to become a film star! Never happened needless to say and I think I've left my run a bit late now!! ;O]
My favourite types of film became slap stick comedy, Musicals, Romance and Mystery Dramas. Pretty much anything looking at that.....except full on horrors, they are still not my cup of tea!
Favourite stars included Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Stewart Grainger, Spencer Tracy, Margaret Lockwood, Jean Simmons, Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor, and many more. Film ratings, as I remember it back then, had three classifications.
Strictly Adults Only was an 'X'. Children accompanied by an adults was an 'A' and 'G' was for General Exhibition. In Australia our rating categories are much the same as UK and the USA nowadays, I believe. But movies are rated by our own Censors here in Australia and can differ from other countries. (Some say ours are not strict enough!)
Remember how big those old Cinemas used to be? In Australia now we have Cinema complexes that show several different movies at the same time in quite small individual cinemas all in one main building complex. In which a trip to the cinema generally involves less than two hours and only one movie. In the 'old days', we always got two movies. Classified as a 'Main Feature' = A: This was top film stars in a film made by a top production team/company. The lead up to the Main feature was a B movie, this involved up and coming hopefuls in a film made much more cheaply, by a lesser light production team. These two films plus the Newsreel (No TV then!) would give us at the very least 3 hours and at times up to 4.1/2 hours of entertainment with an short interval between films. That's when usherettes stood at the bottom of the aisles wearing those yoke type trays displaying ice creams, sweets and drinks for sale. Remember too how the closing credits scrolling up the screen at the end of the main feature, prompted a rush for the doors to avoid being delayed a couple of minutes longer having to stand to attention while the National Anthem was played. ;O]
Anyone who enjoys exploring movie archieves, old and new, will love a fantastic site I found. Has a vast amount of info in its "Search the Internet Movie Data Base". Also includes "Celebrity Lost & Found" section, and much much more........
http://www.imdb.com/ Have fun! But be warned you can lose track of time in this one.
Smoking: In Australia, cinemas have been smoke free for a long time. Restaurants had non smoking and smoking sections for a while, but most, if not all, are now smoke free. Places of work, offices, factories, lunchrooms included are smoke free.
Even most of our major open air Football arenas are smoke free in all seating areas.
Hotels (pubs) in general are slowly coming into line.
The outcry of losing business if they went smoke free from restaurants and the like proved to be unfounded. In reality business increased from non-smokers who had been avoiding these venues because of the smoke filled environment.
Advertising of cigarettes is banned nationally, and sponsoring of any sports by the cigarette companies is no longer legal. This was initially seen as being the forerunner of financial disaster for many sports. But that never happened either, others companies quickly stepped in with their support. Wow, I do go on a bit!! ;O] Get carried away I'm afraid, or maybe I should be carried away! Ok, Ok you didn't have to agree!! LOL LOL ;O]
Margaret - Perth, Western Australia
We too have laws against smoking in public buildings. Here in California restaurants used to have "smoking" and "nonsmoking" sections, but now it's "nonsmoking" throughout. But I do remember all that smoke in cinemas, creating a smelly blue haze for us to peer through at the screen, when we were growing up.
Here in the US we too have multi-theater complexes. One of them not too far away has 22 in one building. Almost have to allow yourself a few extra minutes to find your way to the one you're looking for.
We don't go to the movies often -- probably average one every 18-24 months. Last one was "Tea With Mussolini" which attracted us because it had three of the best in it -- Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, and Judi Dench.
When we do go, we always take the first matinee of the day. Not only for the discount on price but because we have the place almost to ourselves. Usually there are about ten seats filled, in a 250 - 300 seat auditorium.
The last time, there we were, in blissful isolation in the back row, only 7 other seats occupied in a row way down the front, and in came an elderly couple, just after lights went out.
"Honey, I can't see a thing," we heard the lady whisper to hubby, having just come in from brilliant sunshine. They entered our row from the other end, sidling along awkwardly. We watched as they came closer, assuming they would plunk down into seats long before they reached us. But they edged closer and closer. As they approached us my husband said "Hi there..." but it fell on deaf ears. Next thing we knew was the lady lowering her ample bottom onto my husbands lap, just as he had started to say "Um...pardon me, but...." The poor lady leapt up immediately, all of a fluster, stammering apologies! Funny thing was, she then sat in the seat right next to my husband, blissfully unaware of those 290 vacant seats nearby. Oh the perils of life without usherettes!
Frances
"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"I' ve been away from home so am catching up on my mail, hence the delay. My story is not of a mouse but a hamster, which was given to me . It lived happliy in the cage I made and finally after a couple of years died in the November. It was buried in the garden with much ceremony and was almost forgotten. One day next spring the family were astounded to find a hamster running in the house. Where had it come from? I was closely interrogated. Close inspection found it to be the one we had buried. Was this a case of resurrection? No, nothing so dramatic. That's how I found that hamsters hibernate. At the time it was pretty scary.-----
Ralph Worthington
Hello all,
It's interesting that so many other people have childhood rodents stories, isn't it?
You will probably recall that I recently talked about smells that brought back memories, & also wrote about the markets. Well this is a combo, 2 for the price of one - story.
When we lived near "The Lane," my mother used to go there most Fridays and buy a freshly slaughtered, kosher chicken. For those of you not into the ins & outs of kosher laws, I'll give you an abbreviated lesson.
In order for a bird or animal to be considered kosher, a number of ritual laws must be observed, some of which are: it must have had split hooves i.e cattle, sheep, goats, no pork; of course. The animal must have been healthy, not having had any diseases, and must have been dispatched in the most humane way that is by having its throat cut by a ritual slaughterer, called a shoichet, and all its blood must be drained out. Also the meat to be salted to draw out all remaining blood, plus it had to be sold within (I think but could be wrong on this point) no longer than about 24 hours after being killed.
I was really grossed out by the chicken sellers. They would have several dozen bloodstained dead birds hanging upside down like obscene bouquets from hooks in their stalls, and the smell was incredibly bad.
Mum would buy one for Friday night's dinner, take it home in her little folding 2 wheeled shopping cart, pluck it, and then singe its pin feathers with our gas poker (remember them?) That smell of burned feathers was enough to make one throw up. Then she would cut the chicken open and calmly remove its insides. I could not stay in the kitchen while she was dong this, it was more than my tender stomach could stomach. But boy, the things she could do with those chicken parts was magical.
She always made soup, of course. She also made the noodles and the matzo balls from scratch . I've never had chicken soup that was as scrumptious as my dear mother could make, and those matzo balls (called canadeluch in Yiddish) would melt in your mouth. But, I suppose we all loved mum's cooking, didn't we?
Gerry Wiseman
Fun to read the market memories! I have to confess that as a child I hated markets, and was glad we didn't shop in one often. I'm not sure why, except that the general atmosphere made me feel uncomfortable. Sounds as though I was a little snob of sorts, doesn't it?
If so, I've now reformed, for I enjoy visiting Farmers Markets, the general American equivalent.
Tooting market, where we sometimes shopped, offered live shiny black eels tying themselves into loose knots in a shallow tank of water, and dead gray rabbits hung upside down from black hooks to be skinned in one or two deft motions by a bored man with fearfully sharp little knife. After they were rendered stark naked, the man used the same knife to pop the eyes out of their sockets, and then sent them flying them with a backwards flick of his wrist. The bench behind him was covered with little unseeing black eyes. Enough to give an animal-loving child nightmares.
I loved rabbit stew with its chunks of tender chicken-like meat that seemed mercifully quite unrelated to those hideous carcasses in the market, or the cute little animals we sometimes saw hopping about in the country. Mum bought our meat from the local butcher, who sold only cutup rabbit meat, and I was glad she never brought home one of those little naked upside down bodies from the market, for I'm sure I could never have enjoyed it.
Your description of the chickens being cleaned by your mother, Gerry, reminded me of the first postwar Christmas when we actually had a turkey, bought from a turkey-raising pal of Uncle Fred next door. Only one thing had been removed from the bird; its head. So it was up to us to pull the feathers from the outside and the guts and gizzards from the inside. Plucking was simple and quite fun, but Mum wasn'tat all sure about turkey insides. She took a little peek, shuddered "ooer," then called in Uncle Fred to do the disemboweling, which we kids found morbidly interesting -- though disgusting enough for me to consider for a moment the idea of a vegetarian lifestyle.
Although whoever got the poultry wishbone always acted triumphant and made a big to-do of pulling it apart with someone to see who got a wish, I was never the one. Because the finders always seemed amazed at their luck of discovery, I assumed for years that the wishbone site was a random thing, unpredictably located and quite unrelated to bird anatomy.
Frances
"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"Hi all, I always enjoyed going to the Coventry market as a kid. It was part covered and part outdoor, behind the main shopping street with the entrance through an arcade beside Woolworths. I'll bet Jim remembers it. I always enjoyed the food stalls best. they exuded such gorgeous smells. At the time we could rarely afford such delights , but ahh, the aromas. Ayear or two before the war, Dad got a job and we were able to partake of such delights as pork pies ( why, oh why, can't you get one in the US? Even if we go to Canada and buy one in Marks and Sparks, the customs, or rather the Dept of Ag., won't let you bring it onto the sacred soil.) and roast pork buns with sage and onion stuffing. Even better, on the way through the arcade you had to pass Elizabeth's bakery and Mum would get me my very favourite cream puff bun, made of choux pastry and FILLED with real whipped cream. My mouth waters now at the thought. They were so much bigger than any I've seen since, or it just my aging memory playing tricks?
Not a market as such was the annual Crock Fair, held on either Stoke Green or Hearsall common. I loved to go with my parents and sister after dark with all the oil and acetylene lamps lit. So much more exciting than electric lights! I especially loved the patter of the stallholders, once they had gathered a large crowd. The would offer a huge selection of crockery starting at say, five pounds and gradually keep adding more and dropping the price till they would offer the lot for say, seven and six.
Thena feeding frenzie would start in the crowd, so that even the numerous assistants were overwhelmed with buyers. I've often wondered since how much the crocks were really worth. Still the fair returned every year and travelled all over the Midlands and North, so folks must have been satisfied. as the same faces showed up every time. I don't believe that this was a Southern, or London, phenomenon , I guess you had all those markets.
By the way I'm trying to leave a record for my kids, so far 30+ pages and I'm only at age eight or nine. As I only type with one finger, it's a real time consuming labour of love.
Keep the tales flowing.
Ralph Worthington
"...........I'll bet Jim remembers it." I certainly do. It was always a favourite spot even after the war. I particularly remember, before the war, my father taking me every saturday night to the market hall, a large covered building with a clock tower.
My special treat were the American comics, the funnies from the US papers which he bought for me. Next to the market was a pub entered through an entry in the wall of the market .It was known as "the Hole in the Wall".
After going through the market and having a "batch" dipped in pork fat (sorry Gerry) we would go to the pub and my dad would buy me a lemonade. My dad was a great sportsman but he hurt his knee so he confined himself to darts, crib, snooker and lawn bowls. I followed in his footsteps except for bowls. I remember at age nine he started me on boxing lessons at a working men's club. There were some pretty tough guys around and I was terrified.
-- Cheers...Jim Elks...