The travelling cinema.

Back in the 1950s, the travelling cinema came to the New Hall on a friday night. I would think that many of the generation who grew up in the village post war, got their first experience of the world of film that way. A couple of days before the event, cinema posters would appear outside the hall and on friday evening you would see the projection equipment being taken in. Adults paid one shilling to get in and children sixpence and for those princely sums we got to see all the classic films of the era from 'The Dam Busters' to 'High Noon'. Being the village hall things could get a bit rowdy and the proprietor often came around with a large torch to dissuade the perpetrators, and presumably any other forms of naughtiness that might have gone on in the back row. Children mainly sat at the front, if unaccompanied and naturally a special watch was kept on unruly behaviour there. The occasion I remember best was the showing of the notorious 'Rock Around The Clock' featuring Bill Hayley and the Comets. The showing of this film had provoked riots in some parts of the country with Teddy Boys wrecking cinemas but at the New Hall the only sign of disorder were a few cusions being thrown.

Television killed off the travelling cinemas as it did other forms of communal entertainment and Cinema was dead in the village before 1960. There was a Silverton Film Society that existed for a time in the late 60s and operated at The Three Tuns but this catered to an audience with somewhat higher intellectual pretensions then existed amongst those who attended the showings held by the travelling cinema.