I've met people before who remember the Cinema when it was a cinema, but today I met someone who had helped to build it! He even went upstairs to see if the ceiling he had helped to put in was still there!
(It was - the blue one with stars painted on it. He was so pleased).
He told me that the original cinema was a little bit down the hill somewhere, and that it kept on working while the new cinema was being built. This was in around 1965. The projectionist from the cinema kept coming up to the building site and scrounging wood for his fire, and after a while, the builders said: "Come on - we've given you all this wood. When are you going to show us a film?"
They chose a day when the boss visited the site in the morning, so they knew he wouldn't be back for the rest of the day. Then they downed tools and headed off to the old cinema, and settled down to watch one of the Lassie films.
When the film was over, they were going to go back to site, but one of their number wouldn't move. "We haven't had God Save the Queen yet!" he complained!
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The old cinema was called "The Plaza" and was virtually a tin sheeted workshop at the back of what was then Like's Garage. There was no balcony, just a sloping floor from the rear to about half way down when the "tanner" seats started.
The owner manager was Mr. Terry Madigan. His brother Des ran several big cinemas in South Wales. It was Des who built the new cinema in Church Street in the early 1960's.
"The Plaza" was extremely popular and I remember often, the queues stretched half way down Swan Bank.
You used to have to book seats at Madigan's cycle shop in Castle Street (where Denny Parry was until recently) if a special film was on the programme.
Ah, happy days.
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