I think it was at Wheatley Hill, it was at the Palace, the first talkie I saw, I'd be about eight. Al Jolson, I think it was the first one we saw. The Jazz Singer. Oh, we couldn't believe it!

'We used to go to the Silent films and they used to have community singing on a Friday night, Between the films, or before the picture started and then during the interval and these songs used to come up on screen, with a dot going on the words and there'd be about a dozen of us used to get in for nowt, to sing. But you had to be well in with John McAnaney, because he was in charge of it, his mother had something to do with it. So we used to keep in with John on a Friday and he'd say: "Come down to the Hippodrome tonight," and we used to go down and we'd get in for nowt and we used to have to sing these songs. They were Silent films and sometimes they used to have a piano or a small orchestra--there was an orchestra pit at the Hippodrome--had a small orchestra playing. Old Kitto on the trumpet. Light stuff. They were popular songs, songs of the time. Keep the Home Fires Burning, stuff like that.'

And people used to read the titles out loud.

'They did! Used to go the pictures down there and the words used to come up on screen and it was just like being in church! These old couples used to go and maybe the woman could read and the man couldn't--or maybe the other way round--so they used to speak it out and when the words used to come up on screen, why everybody'd be "Drrer, drrer, drrer!"

'I think it was threepence in the dog end. The circle? Ninepence I think--I think it was threepence, sixpence and ninepence upstairs.'

Can you remember your first wireless?

'I was working on Gilson's Farm. No on had one, very few. It was in the Thirties when we would get our first wireless. We had a portable gramophone, used to wind it up, put these records on. We had that when we moved into School Square.'

What records did your father like?

'Oh, he never bothered. Our Margaret and Nora used to buy stacks of them, old 78s.'

Dance bands?

'No, these singers and that. Gracie Fields, light operas, Chocolate Solder, Maytime. But I was working on the farm, me and a bloke from Horden. Tommy, eeeh, what was his name? Little fella, little bricklayer. I was working with him and I knew we were getting a wireless. Came back home on me bike and the wireless was there. Why, it was only a little thing, just like something like that with knobs on. Used to be hell on, changing the bloody stations!'

It was in the front room?

'No, it was in the back in School Square, it was in the kitchen.'

And when did you get the big wireless? (This was a push-button radio in a huge wooden cabinet, about the size of two large modern TVs placed on top of each other, which we still have)

'Oh, hell, we were in the big house when we got that. We got that about 1940. Oh, aye, it was all the go. Just press the buttons. Aye, it was a good 'un that.'

NEXT: More on the Pictures and the Carnival.

Formerly known as the Palace, the Royalty Cinema at Wheatley Hill was built just before World War One and lasted through to the early 1970s as a cinema. Then used as a storage warehouse, it was finally demolished in 2003-2004. The film showing on the marquee here is Stagecoach, which dates the photograph as around 1939-40. At that time, the star featured on the marquee, Claire Trevor, was a far bigger name than John Wayne: this was the movie that made him a star. In re-releases of the film he was billed first but not so here, hence I’m fairly confident about this dating. The first film I can remember seeing at the cinema was at the Royalty: Bridge of the River Kwai, with my Aunt Margaret Tunney and my elder brother Hubert. This was a re-release of the film and was around about the time I started school, in 1963. I was a regular at the Royalty as a child in the 60s, one highlight being the screening of Goal! the story of the 1966 World Cup in which an entire cinema full of kids were chanting ‘England! England!’ at the screen. And then there was that chaotic half term screening of the original King Kong in around 1968 in which I was thrown out by an over-enthusiastic doorman for asking him the time. Happy Days!

Below: ‘the big wireless’. This huge push button Defiant radio set was bought by my grandfather from Wheatley Hill store around 1940-41 and was then state-of-the-art technology. Via Theodore Cottage and my grandparents move to 4 Chad Square, Thornley it came down to me in 1971. The old electric fire to the right is also a relic of Theodore Cottage, as are the dark blue volumes of the 1935 ‘Modern Home University’.