By the time Christmas 1975 came round I began to think it was time to put in for a manager’s role at one the Rank Organisation’s Odeon cinemas.
I believed Tony, my manager at Romford, had taught me all he could teach me. This included matters one did not automatically connect with cinemas, such as publicity in the local newspaper.
At first you might think cinemas rivalled newspapers in the matter of local advertising. I am sure you all remember the locally made advertising films which were shown before the film started and, in those days, when adverts appeared in the interval as well.
The point is cinemas also needed to advertise what films they were showing and the times of the showings. There was another way of advertising and that was by running a competition in the local newspaper.
These would be linked to the main film on show in any one week and could consist of a picture for children to colour in; or a spot the difference competition using an image from the film.
The prize on offer might be a pair of tickets to see that week’s film. At other times Rank might have done a deal with a manufacturer and offer prizes of their products.
Bassets offered advertising products based on Jelly Babies – there was a Bassets barrel bag, or Jelly Baby jelly moulds, or similar products.
Sometimes the manufacturer would send enough of the product to make 20 prizes or more, and there were times when the competition would only attract 10-15 entrants.
I’m not sure what Tony did in this situation, apart from the fact that myself and Sheila might receive one of the prizes each, but when I was running my own cinema I would let the contact at the newspaper have a couple of the excess *prizes, give members of the staff some and, depending on the prize itself, I might take a couple home.
In fact almost 50 years later I still have one of the barrel bags, along with a PG Tips tin tea caddy and chef’s apron (in fact we only got rid of the PG Tips tea cosy earlier this year).
As I sad at the beginning I felt it time to get my own cinema and initially I looked at ones up North, especially those that offered a manager’s flat as well. One of these was at Southport, where we had done the Sooty Show, but unfortunately I just missed out on that one.
Early in 1976, however, my application for one of the London cinemas, Camden Town Odeon, was successful which meant I could still travel from Basildon because although there was a flat connected to the theatre, this had been offered to the local assistant manager in the early 60s.
Just a year after leaving Sooty I was getting ready for a new challenge as manager of a London cinema, not a West End one but still London where they had a different breed of managers – with a touch of class.
I’ll tell you all about that next time.
Robin's Nest 