Cinemas of Battle and Hastings in the War Years
The Ritz, Regal, Gaiety, Plaza, De-Luxe, Elite, and the Kinema and Roxy in St Leonards.

              "DREAMS COME TRUE"              
This was the very first film to be screened at the Senlac Cinema, Battle, in 1937
 An English Musical featuring Frederick Bradshaw and Frances Day, filmed in Black & White

Senlac Cinema Battle 1942


  Ivor operates one of the two BTH 35mm Film Projectors, during one of the frequent wartime air-raids of 1942 to 1944 and sometimes had to run the whole show from start to finish when the Chief Operator Mr. Cyril Parslow   was on "Royal Observer" duty


      "The show must go on"
   Part of our duties was to look outside occasionally to see if there were any bombs dropping or fires in the area which might endanger the building, requiring  a warning slide to be shown on the screen so that patrons wishing to leave the  building could do so     . . .

Most patrons preferred to stay put saying:

"If its got your number on it, it will get you wherever you are !"

Manager Dick Whittington changes the film title

Kindly loaned to me by Mrs Betty Morris
this photo shows our "jack of all trades" manager, bill poster, and usher "Dick", as he was affectionately known by the staff, taking steps to let people know what feature film was playing currently.


Often playing to packed  houses, the Cinema was very popular with the British and Canadian troops who were stationed in Battle Abbey during the wartime years

HAS ANYONE GOT ANY MORE PHOTOS OF THE SENLAC OR PICTURES OF THE PROJECTION EQUIPMENT ?.

Cinemas which survived the Bombs and Doodlebugs of WW2

Ritz Cinema Projection Room - Hastings 

It took a crew of Six operators to run this equipment for a full show
including Wurlitzer organspots. Ice cream girls, slides and music, and  sometimes the personal appearance on stage of a very famous person, like Richard Attenborough for instance, seen below inspecting one of our projection suite machines.  

                                                                                           
                      Hastings Cinemas in the early Post War years  1948-49
I would be most grateful to anyone who has photographs of other Hastings Cinemas which I could include on this Page and would be delighted to include your own description of your memories of the gradual disappearance of our Cinemas.                                                                  1948                                       

   

   
    Photograph by Gifford Boyd, HASTINGS 

My photo shows four of the Ritz Cinema Operators
Left to right, Chief Operator Mr. Joe Knight, Co-Chief Mr.George Wareham, "Marge" Giles and Jonathan Henson  standing at the entrance to the Cinema Cafe 

Ivor shows Richard Attenborough around the projection suite of the Ritz Cinema and demonstrates how the carbon rods inside the Peerless Arcs provide the intense light to project the films images on to the "Silver Screen"
 

PLEASE NOTE

I AM STILL LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO WOULD LEND ME ORIGINAL PHOTOS OF LOCAL CINEMAS FOR INCLUSION IN THIS FEATURE

Frank Searcy, Manager of the Kinema parades his Local Air Cadets seen here outside the bomb-damaged cinema in Norman Road  St. Leonards on Sea