Wigan Album
Standish
11 Comments
Photo: Keith Douglas
Item #: 21526
Admission charges ranged from 10d(about 4p) in the front stalls to 2/1d(about 10p) for balcony seats. Shows began at 6.30pm and 8.30pm except on Tues. and Thurs. when there was only one ‘house’ at 7.30. The last film to be shown on July 2nd. 1957 was the Kenneth Moore classic, Reach for the Sky.
The building was then converted to a plumbers’ supplies which was destroyed in the ‘great fire of Standish’ in December 1963. Many local people will recall Hetty Charnock’s sweet shop to the left of the cinema entrance in this picture.
BRILLIANT photograph I've been looking for a photograph of this cinema for ages. Thanks for putting it on the site.
You haven't got a photo of the other cinema in Pole St. have you?
I remember Hetty Charnock and her sweet shop very well, she was a neighbour of mine. The cinema balcony i recall had 'courting seats' double seats made for two. It was called the bug house by many people, as were most local cinemas those days, having said that i never encountered any bugs, not that i know of anyway.
Ron, unfortunately I have never been able to obtain a photo of Sammy Grant's picture house. My father spoke endearingly of it and remembered seeing SILENT black and white films accompanied by a lady playing a piano!
It,s obviously 'carnival' day in Standish when this photo was taken with these people stood and sat waiting for it to pass. Balloons and streamers on Hetty Charnock,s shop, some people with unusual headgear on, plus a 'success to Standish carnival' banner adorning the cinema.
who is looking from the window upstairs
The shop to the right of the cinema was Tom Wilding's pot shop. Tom was the father of the 3 well-known sisters, one of which was Olwyn(etc) a local school teacher.
Sammy Grants apparently was a corrugated iron structure and my dad commented that if they couldnt get in they would run round the building with sticks rattling against the sides !!
I'm very interested in Sammy Grant but know nothing about him. Edmund Grant took over his cinema, but when and what was the connection between the two? I can't find one. Edmund also started a cinema company in Coppull in 1912. Anyone know anything? Help gratefully received.
The lady playing the piano at Sammy Grant's Cinema on Pole Street would have been Beattie Whitter (Maiden name) or her daughter Idris. Beattie was my great grandfather's sister
I wonder was it the Latham brothers who opened this cinena in 1927,
The poster behind the railings appears to be for a film called "The Cabin in the Cotton" which apparently was released in 1932, so that should narrow down the date.