In post #29 of this series I talked about Derann’s regular involment, enjoyment, not to mention profitable, time we had from putting on film shows at numerous working men’s clubs in the West Midlands. We had as many as three teams working up to four or even five nights a week, with two workers in a team and over time Derek and Johnny had worked hard in order to produce a professional show, with adverts, trailers, shorts if needed and changeovers with the aid of a couple of beer mats. The clubs ranged in size and the frequency of the shows varied from weekly to monthly, some clubs, like the Longbridge Social Club or the Bloxwich Memorial Club, could seat six or seven hundred and the bars would often have extra staff laid on to cope with the extra influx, some clubs even went to the trouble of installing their own screen, which could save us as much as 20 minutes when setting up. I was soon part of Dereks team, John headed a second and Colin headed a third. Each team was equipped with two Bell and Howell 16mm projectors, quality speakers (beasts hand built by Derek and Johnny, each the size and weight of a baby elephant!), and an old reel to reel tape deck, (rehoused in a sturdy wooden case) which would all link up with a number of cables. Once the screen and projectors were in position the reel to reel tape would begin to play light music until the show began and switched on again during the intermission. I was recently listening to some tracks from the Boston Pops Orchestra and those days came flooding back! Nowadays when you visit the cinema you’re ears are subjected to ‘pop’ music, most of which is pretty bad! Derek had been a cinema projectionist during a time when the music played before the film was light orchestral… easy listening and this is what was on the reel to reel tapes that were put together by Derek and Johnny. Johnny had a liking for ‘Manuel and The Music of The Mountains’ (Geoff Love), Derek was a Boston Pops man. However Ron Goodwin, John Barry and a few other popular orchestras would find themselves in the mix. A microphone was plugged in for Derek to make announcements of future films and it was usually my job to open the tabs and dim the club lights should we be projecting at a club that was lucky enough to have a proper stage, which was used for their live shows. Shows would generally begin at 8pm and finish around 10.15/10.30pm, unless it was a feature with a long running time such as ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘Where Eagles Dare’ or ‘Gone With The Wind’. I saw a good many films that I would never have gone to the cinema to see… films like ‘The Guns of Navarone’, ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’ and all the Dirty Harry movies. The evening could be very tiring after a day at work, but it was easy money, Derek would have Vimto & Macky (Mackeson), I would have a Larger Shandy and we would talk business most of the evening… not forgetting there was film to watch!!
Leave a Reply