johnH
Dutch troops go into the Vaudeville on Broad Street in 1946 to <i>'Theirs is the Glory'</i>, a retelling of the battle of Arnhem.
- Broad Street 1920
Jimbo
What year did The Vaudeville close down?
One of my few recollections of Reading was of my brother and I being taken to the cinema to see Pinocchio. This would have been around 1954 or 1955. I would have been just 2 or 3 years of age. Too young really because I found the film horrific. By the time Pinocchio had been swallowed by the whale I was howling the auditorium down so much that my mother had to take me outside into the street to calm down. I remember the street pavement being right up close to the entrance doors. Plus I remember the street being a very busy town centre thoroughfare with buses travelling along it. I think the cinema might have been The Vaudeville. Is there anything left of it now?
HernesHotrod
I've asked Mum about the Vaudeville Cinema (because she managed several ABC cinemas in Reading, including The Regal) and she says it could very well have been the cinema you mentioned having been to Jimbo. The Vaudeville was located where Boots in Broad Street is now and the side doors opened out into Union Street or what we know as Smelly Alley.
Bam
I am 90% sure that I saw Pinocchio at the Rex Cinema at the end of Oxford Road, opposite the Norcot Hill junction. I think Fantasia was at the same showing. That is not to say that Pinoccio was not screened at more than one cinema as it was a childrens hit at that time.
Not a hit in Jimbo's case but then I was carried out screaming from The Palace Theatre Panto, when a clown climbed off the stage and came towards me. I have not been to a Panto since but did meet Coco the Clown when he came to Bucklers at Caversham Road to have the battery for his caravan recharged. We had to sell him a new one in the end but he got trade discount.
Looking at my 1960 Kelly's Directory, it is surprising how many cinemas had already closed by then.
HernesHotrod
It may very possibly have been The Rex where Jimbo saw Pinocchio, I only mentioned the possibility of it being The Vaudeville because he mentioned that the street went straight up to the entrance of the place. Mum was saying she did her manager training at The Rex and was also Assistant Manager of The Central in Friar Street. Growing up she told me all these fantastic stories about the cinemas and I never truly appreciated them but now we have Multiplexes I do. Yeah so you can watch 10 films in a day if you so wish but there's something lacking from when I was taking to the cinema as a kid and that I believe is atmosphere.
Bugs Bottom
What a great picture. I can make out the side of Hills store in the background. As discussed in another thread, this place was the mecca of many oldies' childhood days, as it was the town's leading toy store. Also in shot, the frontage of James Barrington. That shop I believe was a furrier and still there in the late 50s or early 60s, but nearly half a century on, memories grow dim.
I can't remember the Oatsheaf at all, but do remember the opening of Timothy Whites the chemist, which was built on the site of the old Vaudeville. The exit onto Union St was preserved in the design of the new store. This chain was later taken over by Boots.
windrush
Ah, Hills. My Aunt, who is also my Godmother, was Manageress of Hills during the fifties and at Birthday and Christmas she used to let me choose whatever toy I wished for, happy days!
Bam
Looking at John's original photo, almost half of the Dutch troops are looking longingly at the Oatsheaf but it seems there is a strategically
placed policeman to ensure that none stray out of line !
Hills is getting off topic but was where all my de luxe toys came from in the 1950's i.e. Hornby Dublo railways ( then made of metal and with three rail track ) and Dinky toys and military artillery pieces that had shell cases and fired shells across the carpet ( what was the famous maker? ). This did result in a visit to the doctors , when ammunition from one of their machine guns entered my ear and refused to be shaken out. They also kept an enormous selection of "lead" farm animals and regiments of soldiers etc. but I think we already have a thread for this somewhere . . . . .
piwacket
I certainly remember the Vaudeville, and it had tea rooms on the first floor, as a ten/eleven year old I used to get taken there by my mother before the Cinema - sort of Dad's army type tea room LOL, pots of tea and cakes .... a real treat. I'm almost sure there was also the Gaumont on the opposite side of the road? until they both closed and the Gaumont went down Oxford Road, corner of Russell Street, where the Billiard Hall went after it was closed too.
Les
I can see that it is a while since anything was posted on this thread, but if you don't mind it behing resurected (after all, it is Easter) then I will exercise my memory. The cinema in Broad Street was indeed the Vaudeville, but it was not rebuilt when Timothy Whites took it on, just converted. I remember going up into the stock room and one could still see the ornate ceiling and the projection windows etc. The cinema in Friar Street, which had the tea rooms I think Pywacket, was originally the Central, and was renamed the Gaumont when that worthy establishment which was on the corner of Russell Street and Oxford Road,was turned over to the Snooker Club. I think it was the Regal in Caversham, but opposite that was the Glendale, otherewise known as the flea pit. The Savoy was in Basingstoke Road opposite where Morrisons is now, and of course there was the Granby at the Cemetary Junction which conveniently burned out while it was being demolished. And who remembers the major fire in Smelly Ally?
Bugs Bottom
Ah, I thought that the Timothy Whites store was a rebuild. Just shows how unreliable memory can be. When was the fire in Union St? It seems to ring a bell somewhere, but I can't place it.
piwacket
I'm sorry to argue Les - but I am convinced it was the Vaudeville that had the tea rooms, as the plate glass window (huge to a child!) looked out over Broad street. The Central had an odd layout upstairs if you remember, like a balcony in a Church (or Music Hall), a sort of horsehoe shape with only pairs of seats along it's sides, so you need to look over at an angle to see either the screen (or stage, if it ever was). I don't think these seats were ever sold - certainly not when I went there anyway.
Les
Pywacket, I bow to the superior knowledge gained in your obviously miss spent youth! Actually, something odd has just occured to me looking at the second (1920) picture.Where is Smelly Ally? I shall have to go and have a look and check. During WW2 there was a paint & glass shop on the other of Smelly Ally called Archer Bottrill & Fuller. When Reading was bombed the chap working in the glass cutting shop ended up with bits of glass stuch into him all over. I had to go into RBH for some reason and he was in the same ward and we became great friends. I was only about 9 or 10 at the time
piwacket
Les
I don't quite see that being taken out to tea with mymother is a sign of a misspent youth? Archers was in Smelly Alley (Union Street) when I was in my teens - I'm not sure if there was a 'front' entrance on Broad St, because the (wide) entrance I/we always used was in Union Street - a few yards up on the left - opposite the side entrance to Timothy Whites, which was an L shaped shop, with an entrance on Broad St. They also sold china and glass and some simple household equipment - brooms/brushes etc.
Bugs Bottom
Archers was in Union St until at least the late 60s. I remember the wooden floors and old fashioned lamps quite clearly. My mother used to buy crockery and 'simple household equipment' there. Timothy Whites was not on the corner of Union St, but as piwacket says, an L shaped affair. In the late 60's the corner shop was Chelsea Girl, a fore-runner of River Island. I am reasonably sure that this had a frontage on Broad St, with additional window space on Union St. Then, on Union St, came the greengrocer stall, (preserve of Mrs Temple the literally, larger than life saleswoman) and Eighteens Fishmongers, which would have been at the front right of this shot. Archers was further down on the left, (mid pic)
Picture by Uli Harder.
http://gallery.future-i.com/England/rea ... /full-size
Boring
My father, with two colleagues, on the roof of The Vaudeville, taken I'd guess sometime around 1930 or not too long afterwards.
I wonder if anyone's parents or grandparents can put names to the faces.
Les
Bugs, you are partly right about the rebuild. The whole facade in Broad Street was rebuilt, but I cannot remember when. However originally Timothy Whites took over the old Vaudeville and did just as much conversion as was needed to make it into a shop. Neither can I remeber (I think I have had a visit from the dementia fairy) when the Union Street fire was, but I was involved in the emergency repair work. There used to be a cutain fabric shop called Linen House, and early one morning a disgruntled gent trew a box of fish which had been left for Eighteens through the window and followed it with a lighted match. It didn't take too long for the fire to get a very good hold and was up into the common roof space of all the shops along that side. Just opposite Linen House was Tescos original Reading shop, a ver pocky little place. The store room above the shop was a bit cramped, about 4'6" floor to ceiling.
Bugs Bottom
Thanks Les, I do remember what was obviously the partially rebuilt store opening, as a family friend came down from a post in Scotland to be the launch manager. And... Tesco in Union St! I remember the Friar Street store but not the Smelly Alley branch.
Colleen
The pushbar door to the Vaudie' was in Smelly Alley. If you waited long enough for someone to exit********you sneaked in, under gas light in the alley of course. It was first a Variety Theatre, that's why it was so ornate. I believe it became one when the old County Theatre burned down. That was opposite Blagrave Buildings area in Friar Street, Where the Hope Tap is now.
The Gaumont at the bottom of Russell St in Oxford Rd, it was the originally the Pavilion. I sang in their choir just after WW2. We called it the Pav'. I was an usherstte for a time in 1956 at the Odeon in Cheapside, next to the Palace Theatre. We went most Sunday nights to the Big Bandshows there or the Townhall in the 50's. The list of bands is endless. Ahhhh! memories.
Les
Thanks Coll for straightening out the remembery cells, I can now recall it being the Pavillion. Sneaking in through the fire exit was a well practised art for Saturday Morning shows, especially at the Savoy on Basingstoke Road and half the child population of Whitley Estate got in for free at some time or another. It used to brighten the morning when some got cought and thrown out. Do you remember Blagrave Buildings? Obviously built with the most noble of intentions by, I suppose, the Blagrave Family, by the time of their demolition they were exceedingly seedy and I think no one regretted their passing.
Les
Bugs, I can't remeber Tescos being Friar Street, whereabouts was it? I was under the impression that they moved form Smelly Ally to the newly uilt Butts Centre, now inappropriately name 'Broad Street Mall', but I could well be wrong.
Boring
Originally posted by Les
Do you remember Blagrave Buildings? ... by the time of their demolition they were exceedingly seedy and I think no one regretted their passing.
My aunt did! She was moved to a bungalow out in the wilds of Tilehurst. Mind, they did have electricity there, which I don't think they ever had in Blagrave Buildings. Colleen, if you were at the Odeon in the 50s, have another look at the picture I posted of the trio on the roof of the Vaudeville.
