A view of Billingham’s old cinema, the Picture House on Mill Lane. We believe the building is now home to the Fracture Theatre.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A view of Billingham’s old cinema, the Picture House on Mill Lane. We believe the building is now home to the Fracture Theatre.
I well remember this picture house from the late 40’s. Oh, the magic of the Saturday afternoon “Matinee” for kids. The adults mockingly referred to it as the “Tuppenny Rush”. About a 2-hour show typically comprising a cowboy movie, a cartoon, and a serialized Tarzan episode.
It was pandemonium,- the “good guys” (Sherrif’s posse, all with white hats) would thunder across the screen to cheering and stamping of a couple of hundred kids, followed by booing and hissing as the black-hatted “baddies” tried to make their escape. Everyone participated.
All the while an old usher stomped up and down the aisles shouting “Quiet!, Quiet!”. Nobody took the slightest notice of him. It was Bedlam!
Later on, in the mid-fifties, that’s where we took our girl friends to smooch in the back row. Happy memories…
NEIL PALLISTER I KNOW YOUR NAME BUT CAN’T PLACE YOU… I REMEMBER THE SAME AS YOU OF THE PICTURE HOUSE, IT WAS A BIG PART OF OUR LIFE. SOMETIMES THEY WOULD PUT THE LIGHTS ON AND SAY ‘IF YOU DON’T BEHAVE, WE ARE GOING TO STOP THE FILM’ BUT THEY NEVER DID STOP IT. IT WAS ALL PART OF THE FUN.
AT THAT TIME
Billingham Picture House! It was 50 years ago today I was there, sat in the balcony when the movie was stopped, and the Manager came out on stage to inform us that John F Kennedy, the President of the United States had been assassinated. I guess it is one of those things that happen that you always remember where you were when you hear.
Thank you for posting this. I worked there in 1958. When I was very young it was sixpence a the front down stairs, ten pence at the back 1s 9 p up stair .