Saturday Morning Pictures

All week long I used to look forward to Saturday mornings: no getting up early, no school, comics delivered and reading in bed. But when the day came, I was always disappointed with the anti-climax. Mum used to cut herself off in the kitchen all morning, banging around with pots and pans, doing mysterious things; I could never work out what she found that was so interesting that she could do it all morning. When I went into the kitchen she used to encourage me to leave again as though she didn't really want me there. In the afternoon she “had her bath”, soaking in the water for hours so it got cold, then I was supposed to “Jump In” to have my bath. Just jump in Sarah, the water's still warm. By then the water was cold, grey and murky with a layer of dissolved bath cubes; the stale smell of lavender lying in the air. I never fancied it. After this she shut herself away in her bedroom in front of a violet ray lamp trying to “get a tan”, curlers in her hair which were shrouded in a heated bag powered with hot air though a tube from a pump, a sort of small, home hair dryer. It was called a “Ronson Escort Hairdryer 2000”. I thought she looked alarming. This was all to look good for my Dad, who was never there on Saturdays. He worked all day and got back for his evening meal which she spent all day cooking when not in beauty parlour mode.

I walked to school everyday with Debbie. On this particular day we talked about what we did at the weekend, and she described the exciting things she did on Saturdays. She talked about “Saturday Morning Pictures”. I had “been to the pictures” sometimes with my Mum and Dad. We went straight from school on Tuesdays; Mum took along a package of jam sandwiches for my tea, and sometimes Dad bought a large bag of toffee popcorn for me. I used to love the popcorn; some bits stuck together with the toffee sauce making a larger lump. I once found a huge lump when we were watching the film “Fantastic Voyage” with Raquel Welch (1966), where a scientific team was shrunk and injected into a man's body to blast away a blood clot on his brain. I saved this huge lump, only to eat it once the team had been injected into the man's blood stream. These were exciting days. We used to go into the cinema when we were ready and not when the film started. We used to enter when the film was halfway through and leave when the film was on its second showing, we got up and left when Dad said, “Right, this is when we came in”. They had never heard of, or looked at the cinema timetables printed in the local press.

Debbie invited me to go to Saturday Morning Pictures with her on the following weekend. I got very excited at this and said that I would love to go. She was very precise and regimented on how we should go. She had it all planned out like a military exercise. I had to take along two shillings. This would be spent as follows: sixpence for the bus fare there, sixpence admission cost, sixpence for sweets and sixpence for the bus fare home. We were to go on the 320 bus at 9.30am ready for the start at 10.30. I needed to get this money from my Mother. That day after school I asked Mum if I could go. She thought I was a little young at the age of eight to go out without an adult, but because I was going with Debbie it would be OK, but I was to do exactly as Debbie said, because she was very sensible and reliable. Debbie was a few weeks younger than me. I think she envisaged a morning without me, which encouraged her to agree with the plan. I told her about the two shillings requirement and she looked less enthusiastic. She concurred anyway: perhaps she thought it was a price worth paying.

Saturday morning came and we queued up at the bus stop at 9.20am, in accordance with Debbie's itinerary. Debbie was very smartly dressed with her grey gaberdine mac precisely buttoned, her extremely white lacy socks and black polished shoes. I had on my second hand woolly coat, dirtier old socks and scruffy blue Clark's sandals. But at last I was going out; I was so excited! We got on the bus, it was an adventure not to be with my Mum, I saw the World in a whole new panorama. There were some more children that I recognised from school, how come all these children knew about Saturday Morning Picture and not me? I gave the bus conductress my sixpenny piece and she gave me a ticket, I had my own ticket! I put it in my purse. The bus arrived in the town centre and there it was, The Odeon, the centre of the known world, such an exciting place to go to. There was a long queue of children queuing outside as the doors hadn't been opened yet. We took our place at the back of the queue; there were a lot of children, all primary school age and all under the age of eleven. We made a lot of noise and fooled around.

Then the doors opened and we filed in, each handing over our sixpenny piece to the lady with a blonde beehive and nylon overall sitting in the ticket booth. Each child was given an admission ticket which we had to give to the lady at the door, you couldn't get it without a ticket and once you were in, that was it, you stayed in, you weren't allowed to leave. If you left you had to pay another sixpence to get back in; no one left again. Before we went in we bought our sweets. Some children bought their sweets before they entered the cinema; perhaps they knew somewhere to buy cheap sweets. We knew of no place like this, so Debbie and I bought ours in situ. She told me to definitely buy a Barratts Sherbet Fountain, also some little chocolate bars, some pink shrimps and some Trebor BlackJacks and Fruit Salads. I thought that this would cost too much but she had worked out the costings and yes, I found out that it was possible to buy all these sweets for sixpence. So I did.

We entered the main hall and there were hundreds of children inside; it was very busy and noisy, a bit like entering into the mouth of hell. Each child was laughing and screaming loudly and trying every seat in the auditorium for size. There were two ladies in overalls and a taller man in a suit organising everybody and getting us seated. When we were all finally sitting down he stood at the front and made a hushing sign with his finger in front of his nose. A miracle occurred and everybody was silent. He then pointed to the screen and before the lights dimmed a film showed of a young Queen Elizabeth trotting around on a white horse in full red blue and brass royal regalia, surrounded by many cavalry guardsmen in red uniforms and white helmets with feathers. The national anthem was played which we had to sing along to, and we all had to stand up in respect of her, the Brownies had to give the Brownie salute. I was not a Brownie even though I really would have liked to have been one (my Mum wouldn't let me) so I gave the Brownie salute anyway; and if you were a boy in the Cubs you had to give the Cub salute.

Then we sat down and the main features started including cartoons, a weekly adventure serial, a film about animals, something on travel for children; all appropriate stuff. This signalled the fun to start with the Sherbet Fountains. A Sherbet Fountain consists of a tube of cardboard filled with sherbet powder, tapering off to one end with a twisted end in which is inserted a hollow liquorice tube. We got the liquorice tube loose in the twisted end then suck through the hollow liquorice tube a quantity of sherbet which we then blew into the air aiming at the person in the row in front. This was great fun. All through the performance there would be some sherbet being blown around, The air was thick with it. I don't know what the cleaner must have thought about this each week after the event, but we were allowed to do it, no one told us off or not to do it. I expect that when you add up the profit from selling hundreds, even thousands, of Sherbet Fountains over a year, that the management thought it lucrative even taking into account the cleaner's wages. At the end of it all we queued up again at the bus stop to spend our last sixpence to get home.

Debbie and I went to Saturday Morning Pictures for a few months. On my last visit I lost my purse with the precious sixpence for my bus fare home. I was in total panic. How was I supposed to get home? Would I ever leave? Would I be trapped here for ever watching the ghosts of lost film stars flickering in black and white on the screen? Would I be made to clear up with the cleaner the remains on the sherbet powder floating around on the upholstery. Would my parents even miss me? I was very, very worried and even got a bit frightened. Good old Debbie, reliable Debbie, dependable Debbie came to the rescue by telling one of the two lady helpers my predicament. The lady said that she would lend me the sixpence that I needed, but I must, must, must pay her back the next week. She was always here, every week and she would see me the next week. I nodded gratefully in agreement. I could go home! I would not be trapped in the cinema; thank you! Thank you! But I was naughty. I did not go back the next week; I never went again and I still owe her that sixpence; wherever she is now.