1949 London, England

Carole Conrad 

1942

London, England

Interviewed on 02/01/2025

by Bee Mannion 

I didn’t go to the cinema very much when I was little. It wasn’t until the late forties that I went to the cinema and it was just down the road. There was one called the Odeon and another called the Gaumont. I would either get the bus or walk there, but it was only a short journey. In those days, you never went far; you would just stay in your neighbourhood, and anyway, there was a bus that went right outside our house so transport was easy. 

The cinema wasn’t expensive, probably around 10p, but we didn’t have much pocket money. When I was 9, sweets came off rationing, so I got an extra penny every week on my pocket money to spend on sweets! In the cinema, you could buy sweets, but not the kind in packets: they had jars of different sweets and they would fill up a little cup. Nobody took drinks into the cinema, and they didn’t have plastic cups or bottles like we do now. Certainly nobody ate in public and if we were caught eating in public in our school uniform, we would be told off. 

The cinema also had ushers. A lady with a torch would stand at the front and show you to your seats. It was very different to how it is now because there were two films: the A film and the B film. You could stay at the cinema all day long because no one was checking. And there was only one screen. In some cinemas, they would have an organ and before the film started, they would play songs. If the films were 12+, we would wait outside for a random grown up, and ask if they could take us in. I’d always go to the cinema with friends. You would go with your school friends because you wouldn’t be able to communicate with people who didn’t go to your school. I remember I went with my friend from school, Naomi Blakely. We didn’t go to the cinema that often, maybe once a month. It was a treat, and anyway, the films would be aired for quite a long time, so there was no rush to watch. 

The first movie I remember seeing was The Red Shoes, when I was seven or eight years old. I don’t remember much about how I reacted to the film because it was so long ago that I saw it. I just remember the ballet, and I’m reminded of it often when I go to the ballet now. 

Going to the cinema was very exciting because there wasn’t much television. There were quite a lot of American films and English films that had quintessential English humour. I loved Limelight with Charlie Chaplin, The King and I, and Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn. Life was very dull, even though we didn’t think it was dull at the time; but cinema showed you a whole different world with beautiful people, such as Grace Kelly, Marlon Brando and James Dean. They showed you a slightly different type of life than what was available. It was just so exciting and really took you out of yourself.