Memories of a cinema career in projection

When he was a nipper in the 1940s, Tom Dallow made his own cinema.

"Well, I had all these things rigged up at home," says Tom, now aged 76. "We didn't have a projector but we got to show stills on a screen, and it got better as time went on.

"Later, I had a mini cinema where you had strips of film which you would feed into the machine and turn it by hand, showing moving images of things like Mickey Mouse."

His vocation, then, was written in lights before he even went to school.

"My only ambition was that I wanted to be in the cinema projection room," explains Tom, from Tenbury Wells on the south east Shropshire border who, in 1951 at the age of 15, would become the projectionist at town's Regal cinema for the next 20 years or so.

It was the place where Tom's mother would take him on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights where he would be transfixed by the entire 'magic' spectacle, from the lighting going down to the velvet curtains being drawn back to reveal Laurel and Hardy on the silver screen.

Except, of course, it wasn't magic. The person making all this happen was the projectionist up in his little booth at the back of the art deco auditorium.

The first film he showed was Odette, a war movie starring Anna Neagle, Trevor Howard and Peter Ustinov.

"You had to change the film reels and that was the first time that I did it myself – and the cinema was full! Luckily it all went to plan," says Tom.

These days with digital cinema, the whole process is much simpler and foolproof, but during the golden age of picture houses on every street corner, packed to the rafters with paying customers, it was an entirely manual, and potentially dangerous, job.

Reels of 35mm film had to be joined and changed part-way through a screening; there was a risk of the film itself burning and stories of projection room fires were not uncommon.

"It was a bit of an art, changing the reels when the change-over dots came up – and yes, the audience would be able to tell if you messed it up!" adds Tom.

The cinema – which has just reopened after a big-money renovation – was all the more special for Tom, because it was also the scene of his own courting days. His wife Margaret was an usherette at The Regal, in her maroon and gold uniform, complete with torch and whistle – the latter bit of kit just in case there was any juvenile misbehaviour in the auditorium.

"She sold the ice creams and we did our courting there, so yes, fond memories!" says Tom.

Tom never tired of watching the same film over and over again. He was, after all, a film lover and he'd probably have done the job for nothing.

Although there was one movie that quickly wore thin on him. "African Queen – and they showed that for a week. I thought it was atrocious, but that was about the only time I ever got bored," he says.

Life up in the booth, with his two 'Kalee 11' movie projectors, was rarely dull. There was too much to keep an eye on for a start.

"Tom would go on to work at The Regal until its closure in 1966, but under new management in the 1970s he was back in his favourite place – the projection room.

"I showed the last film before the cinema closed for a while in 1966. It was The Guns of Navarone. I thought that we might as well go out with a bang.

"I remember how we would fetch the reels of film from Birmingham on a Sunday morning in my Vauxhall Victor – the car would be full of film."

"In its heyday the cinema would be packed. It was a time before having a television was common, people were less mobile and going to the pictures was the thing to do.

"The lowest number of people we ever got was nine, and that was for a showing of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when we showed it in about 1970. But that was the exception."

Even today, whether Tom and Margaret on holiday or visiting a new town, the pair look to see where the nearest cinema is.

"Everywhere we go we look for the cinema. It's something we have to do. We went to Worcester the other day and I went to the cinema while Margaret went to the paint shop," says Tom.

With the expansion of out-of-town multiplexes, most towns have lost their traditional picture palaces. The Majestic in Bridgnorth is the only one in Shropshire which has survived. But Tom says he is pleased to see the restoration of The Regal to its former glory – a move which is to secure its use for future generations of cinema-goers.

"I think it's great. We had a bit of input into the restoration - there is a monkey on the mural on the wall inside which was going to go because there had been damp, but I said 'leave the monkey! Don't take the monkey away!'

"There is a story to the monkey - a local reverend had criticised the mural, painted by George Legge, and so he painted the reverend's eyes onto the monkey."

Tom Dallow isn't generally keen either on the overall presentation of screenings at multiplexes.

In his day he would be the man who controlled not only the movie projector but played records for half an hour before the screening, mixing orchestral tracks across two decks; the the man who dimmed the lights, projected the film certificate onto blue and gold drapes before opening the curtains and finally turning off the lights set into windows along the wall of The Regal.

He also recalls how at one point there was a 'lodger' at The Regal. "A chap called Dudley Green used to sleep in the boiler room when he came home from his ship," remembers Tom.

He continues: "There are a lot of happy memories for Margaret and I at The Regal and we are lucky to have it. It's our original cinema as it was, and is."

We've got film in the blood – I think it runs in the Dallow family."