'Saturday Morning Pictures'

[Ivan Cloherty]

Hi Rodney,

Regrettably, I never did learn to dance. After dancing with me on one occasion my dear wife likened the experience to being run over by a Sherman tank, so it's obvious that, in the interests of public safety, I've no right being on a dance floor. Who knows, perhaps I did those old ladies a favour after all?

.................................................. ....................cheers, Roger.

eh Roger

Should have stuck with the dancing mate, bet you don't think 40 years of age is "grab a granny night now"

Learnt to dance down South America Way and then a bit of ballroom (not very good) but if there are twenty blokes in a room and only one can dance, he's the one that's gonna get the lady, not only that it sure beats jogging to keep you fit abd you can't hold a woman whilst your jogging.

Ivan

[Dennis McGuckin]

Hey Roger,
I too am a past member of the Victor Sylvester dance school.
Well to be more precise, I lasted almost one lesson.
Of course the reason for going was to meet the girls.
Twas in my youth, and I was just learning to drink [think I now have it almost mastered]
After maybe two bottles of beer at the pub, I stagged in to the dance hall.
Recall hanging on to some unfortunate female [think she had been delegated as my partner], before having a severe urge to empty my bladder.
Unfortunately I chose the wrong washroom.
The screams from the woman brought the bouncer.
He promptly chucked me down the stairs into the street.I suffered a bloody nose, and some bruising.
Picked myself up and returned to the pub which was aptly named 'The Elastic"
Never did learn to dance, but on special occasions while dragging the wife around , I offer to show her my 'fish tail'.
Sometimes that lady has a surprising vocabulary.
Den.

[Louis the Amigo]

hi shipmates, what a good post I have not though about this for many years roy rogers', the lone ranger and the rocket man come to mind chip monk crisps oxo favour? long gone them? 6d to go in for 2 hours shout and scream and you had a torch light shine in your face if unlucky ? ice cream in the tray, front of house half time if you had any money ? it was a magical world every saturday morning after running down the street playing cowboys chasing the bad guys {all had black hats in them days} great carefree days The Regent Ely pull down ? now new houses'

[Rodney Mills]

Dennis.

I think I was there, but the full sign was working, it was The Elastic from her knickers...(was broken?).

Cheers, Rodney.

[happy daze john in oz]

Ah Roger, you and I would go well together on the dance floor. According to her indoors I was taught to dance by St. Vitus. She claims it is not possible for one man to have so mnay left feet.

[Neil Morton]

Hi Bruno are you sure you are not my long lost brother. I was born and raised in Mitcham and all the cinemas you mentioned were on my youthful itinerary. The Gaumont Rose Hill in especial. I was one of the Rose Hill Boys, we were regularly done over by the Sutton and Mitcham Boys on a Saturday night. I went to the Lilleshall Rd school in Morden/St Helier cos my mum thought the Mitcham kids were too rough; she should have seen some of the guys in our senior school Ha.
My very favourite was the Granada Tooting, saw John Wayne live there in '54 he later went across to The Castle Hotel and pulled a pint. He would not have gone there in the late 50's as every South London yobo made it their home from home.
There was a dance school above the Majestic, Mitcham and my parents decided all young gentlemen should learn to dance.Off I'd go, aged 14, with half a crown in my sweaty palm to the torture of the waltz, quickstep and foxtrot. What a shamozzle! I went back three times only because there was a stunning Greek girl there about my own age; however when I offered to walk her home a very large brother appeared as if by magic End of romance and the dance lessons.

[Rodney Mills]

Barely a connection to this great thread...Please forgive, or blame it on Rowger, and his great tale about 'tripping the light fantastic '...Words like film and grannies dredged my story up from memory lane.

My beloved Granny, in her teens, was a piano player in a silent movie theatre. Unseen, but pounding away, accompanying the action, romance, tragedy or comedy up on the silver screen.

Grandpa also played, but soft, smooth, wistful melodies ending with rolling musical flourishes up and down the keyboard...Granny, in her mind, never left the cinema...She would pound out something like 'The ride of the Wulkure', switching instantly into a Handel's 'Water music' motif', segueing into, as an example, ' The entrance march of Darth Vader...Star Wars... The Empire Strikes Back'.

Think of the music...close your eyes...imagine a lone rider, racing across the prairie, quirting his horse...front of his hat blown up and flattened by the wind...worried...glancing frantically behind.

CUT TO:

Our hero, one lock of curly hair caressing his broad brow, kerchief neatly dangling beneath his square cut dimpled chin, his woolly chaps, clean as the driven snow... his muscular arms reach forward and embrace our blond, tearful heroine, clutching the now worthless deed to the ranch...silently their lips move.

CUT TO:

Two dozen riders, slow trotting, ominous, led by dastardly Snidely Whiplash, arch villain. Black hat balances on top of his slicker ed brylcreamed hair, he razes his right coat flap, over the grip of his six shooter...In the distance a ranch house....

FADE TO BLACK:

Eyes open...Good! I got variations of this every Sunday afternoon, following dinner...It stopped for a while after my Uncle put heavy brown paper behind the piano strings and the piano sounded 'honkey tonk'. 'Tin Pan Alley' had arrived in Chingford Hatch, Essex.

I was eight at the time and Granny decided I should learn to play the piano...It wasn't that she thought silent movies would make a come back and I could, say, be the next step in a family musical dynasty . More like another generation should be exposed to culture, and I was it.

Granny, dear Aunt Jean and I, boarded the 102 bus to Edmonton, London. We got off the stop before Chingford Mount...Walked back a couple of hundred yards and Granny knocks on a door....What looks like every child's idea of a Witch opens the door ( with hindsight, let's say a fat, ugly, dirty, sloven)...In we go...The smell of cat's pee made my eyes run ...Granny forks over ninepence, snatched by a grasping claw.

I was seated before an upright grubby piano...The witch is mumbling something about crotchets, quavers and treble staffs...I was taking small gasps of fetid air through my mouth and nose!.

A beginners book on pianoforte is thrust at me...an hour of misery is over and I could breath again, though the nose too!. Great lung fulls of life giving air.

"Didn't arff pong in there didn't it?" said Aunt Jean.

Home...But every evening after school, it was one finger practice on the 'JoAnner' while 'me' mates were playing street cricket...lamp post was the wicket, the fence behind, was wicket keeper...Bummer!.

Next week, Granny gives me a shilling...Ninepence for piano lessons...tuppence(sp?) (two pennies) for bus fare...a penny for a lolly.

I showed up for the lesson...Cats have been busy...Her Sloveness looked worse, and her husband, all five foot of him, shabby three piece suit, dandruff on the shoulders, was giving beginner violin lessons to another equally, miserable press ganged kid as me.

That's it!...Next week I rode the bus to the end of the line and back to Chingford Hatch, trying to make sense out of lesson two in that stupid piano book...so I could fake a response to the 'Grand Inquisitor' awaiting me.

I snuck ninepence back into Granny's purse (see Roger...I was not a 'tea leaf' (thief)...Not to my Granny at least).

Everything looked 'cool' and as expected, "What did you learn?".

I played last weeks lesson and added a few notes...and begged to be left alone so I could study my book...home clean!...This went on for a few months...Granny commenting many times on the strange way of teaching piano nowadays.

Then it happened...I caught what was then called 'Yellow Jaundice'...The Doctor ordered three weeks bed rest...Piano lesson day arrived...Granny and Aunt Jean left...I laid in bed not only sick but scared to death.

An hour or so later, the front door slams...purposeful, angry footsteps coming up stairs...

Darth Vader march music.

GRANNY:

"Good job you're bloody sick or I'd kill you, you little s.d...I've never been so embarrassed in 'me' life"...downstairs she storms.

ME: (weakly)

"I put the money back in 'yer' purse Gran".

Aunt Jean, in the door way, crossing her knees and trying hard to not laugh out loud and have an accident...Later she tells me what happened.

They missed the bus and had to wait twenty minutes for the next one...no brolly and it starts to rain.

They arrived wet at the 'music school'...knocked on the door...the witch opened it.

WITCH:

"Yes?".

GRANNY: (full of concern)

"I'm very sorry but Rodney is very sick and won't be coming for his lesson for a month".

WITCH: (puzzled)

"Who's Rodney?".

GRANNY:

"He's eight...You've been teaching him piano...Three months????.

WITCH" (indignant)

"I have not...Don't know a Rodney...I should know who's my students...Do I look daft?.

Door slams...Granny and Aunt Jean slosh back to the bus stop, waiting in the rain...not the time to play the opening few bars from Jean Kelly's 'Singing in the Rain'.

Thank God for yellow jaundice.

Oh!...Granny tried one more time...She enrolled me in TAP DANCING LESSONS...I'M now nine...Fifteen or so GIRLS and I'd be the only boy in the class...I put my foot down, sans tap shoes...Flat refused to go.

Cheers, Rodney.

P.S. Can't play a tune but can still read music.

[Captain Kong]

Two Weeks ago I became a Groupy, at an old cinema in Manchester. It is now called the Apollo, a live stage theatre.
The MONKEES were performing, remember them from the 70s.?
I am a distant relative by marriage, of Davy Jones, who comes from Manchester`s Openshaw district. My step daughter`s husband is Davy Jones` cousin.
Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Tork are on tour around the UK.
I went under protest.
Then I was amazed at the quality of the music, the guitar work and presentaion of the show. I was up there with the crowd stomping and waving hands.The music was brilliant, "I`m a Believer, Last train to Charlesville, and so on." I was the oldest groupie in town at 76.
When we arrived there the family, around twenty of us, Davy Jones` sister, cousins and me were given special badges to wear and at the end of the show we stayed in our seats until everyone else had gone then we were taken to the `Green Room` and then Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Torky arrived and the party started. Free drinks until around 1.30 am. and then I was poured into a car and transported home.
A fantastic show. If they are appearing any where near you, it is well worth going to see them.
Here we are with Davy Jones, he is only a little fellow, and is now 65 years old. How time flies from those days in the late sixties.

Here is me, Anne, and Davy, grandaughter and Davy and Davy and step daughter.

[alf corbyn]

hi rodney. just in case you did n't know, the 102 still runs from chingford to edmonton haha. i did enjoy this post very much alf

hi rodger did they have the double seats in the odeon>

[Roger Dyer]

Hi Alf,

In answer to your query re 'double seats' in the Odeon I really couldn't say. I don't recall any such seats in the stalls. There may have been that sort of seating up in the 'Circle', but as that was generally beyond my price range I really don't know for sure. In those days the Odeon was probably the up-market cinema in Southend and if that sort of 'canoodling' facility were to be found, that's where it would have been.

To the best of my knowledge, my very last visit to the Odeon (to see a film, not to dance) was in 1960 when, in the company of a 'nice' girl I went to see the western 'The Magnificent Seven'. On that occasion I had no need for a double seat as I was far too engrossed in what was occurring up on the screen. To be perfectly honest, I think my companion, Christine, was also more interested in the film than in me and I couldn't really blame her. By mutual consent our short-lived romance was on it's way out the door anyway and no 'double seat' was going to save the situation, Alf. Nevertheless we both enjoyed the film and so, thanks to Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, the night wasn't a total disaster.

About ten days later, having said my last goodbye, I went back to sea and never set eyes upon Christine again. My memory of her now is fading, but you'll be pleased to know I can still quote some dialogue from 'The Magnificent Seven'

..................................cheers, Roger.