Shropshire Star

Sign of the times brings back memories for Don

Who's that up a ladder and changing the advertising board for forthcoming films at the Town Hall cinema in Wellington in the 1930s?

Published
Sidney Fullwood changes the Town Hall cinema sign in 1936.

Thanks to Don Fullwood of Bridgnorth, who got in touch after we used this photo in Pictures From The Past the other day, we now know.

"I read the paper every night and looked at it and said: 'That's my dad.' We have a similar photograph in our memorabilia and I recognised him straight away. The Town Hall was where he worked, showing films," said Don.

His father, who died about 17 years ago, was Sidney Fullwood. The film being advertised starring Kay Francis is Sweet Aloes, a 1936 movie, and the picture was loaned by Mrs Lynne Purcell, whose late father Fred Brown was a cinema historian.

Don said: "My father was also a lorry driver and after he did his daytime duties as a lorry driver he went to the cinema to show the films. When he was not able to get back home from the deliveries my mother Lillian Fullwood had to show the films in his absence.

"We believe that she was the first lady cinematographer in the country.

"Originally they lived in Regent Street in Wellington."

Don says his dad was a projectionist and he is not sure how he got involved in showing films. He worked for Alf Evans, who farmed at Arleston, and did deliveries for him during the daytime. Don thinks Alf owned a number of cinemas in the area and speculates that working in the Town Hall cinema in the evening was an extra duty Sidney did to bring in some extra money.

"He told me how he spliced the films together when they broke. People used to get a bit upset if they were watching a film and it broke, and he had quickly to put the film back together again.

"Watching television he used to say: 'We used to show that film at the Town Hall.' The sort of films he was showing in those days were black and white films like King Kong or Charlie Chaplin, and later they went to the early colour films."

As Don, born in 1942, can remember going to the Town Hall cinema, his parents must have been involved there until at least the mid-1940s.

"When I was about four or five I remember my mum taking me down. If my father didn't get back from this distance lorry driving my mother went down and opened the cinema up. I can remember the reels and the projectors and looking through the little square from the projectionist's office.

"Then my father became a trainee electrician and worked at a place at St Georges, and worked at Sankey's after that.

"Mother was 93 and father was 84 when they passed on."

According to the British History Online website, the Town Hall cinema opened in 1920 and closed in 1959.