Bob and I went camping

Near to us, in the same field, was a caravan where two actors from the Royal Shakespeare company stayed and at times, they practised their parts outside where we could hear them quite clearly. But after a week we were not sorry to go back home. However, although we did not revise much, we did pass our exams.


The Assistant Projectionist

When I left school (with a pass in the essential five subjects) I had no desire to continue in the education process. I was truly fortunate to be able to join the family business. My Grandfather Joseph Cohen had created a successful business, consisting of a chain of cinemas and a property investment company.

So, I joined my father George who ran the cinemas, whilst his brother Stanley helped grandpa with the properties. I needed to prove my commitment and so for the first two years I began as an assistant projectionist.

This was tough for me, because of the unsociable hours involved, the programs began at 10:30am and ran till 10:30pm Monday to Saturday, then from 3:00pm till 10:30 on Sundays. So, we had to be there half an hour earlier at 10:00am to be prepared and usually we did not leave till after 11:00pm at night.

In those days Birmingham hardly had any night life, so my social life was very restricted. Of course, our working hours were staggered and varied each week, but I had to work alternate weekends and my odd free days were usually when all my friends were still working. But a great bonus for me was that I loved all the cartoons, particularly 'Bugs Bunny' and 'Tom and Jerry' and these were always included.

I can imagine that anyone reading this, especially those much younger than me, if any ever will, will find it hard to imagine how things worked, as technology has advanced so much since the 1960's. In those days the Internet, computers, mobile phones, or even the concept of digital systems for everyday life simply did not exist - life was so vastly different when I was young.

Because these cartoon and comedy programs lasted for only one hour and then were repeated, there was so much more work for the projectionists, as each projector spool only lasted about 20 minutes. Firstly, every week all these short films (about 5 minutes each for cartoons and about twice as long for the comedies) had to be joined up and timed with the adverts, to form the one-hour program.