Cinema

 Addiction 816

The addiction to sports, marks an arrested development of man's moral nature.

Addiction focuses on desire.

Living with an addiction can be very stressful. It can seriously damage your work performance and relationships.

Eg Computers Gambling  Shopping Work 

What made you want to write a memoir now about your “addiction” to film?

My first addiction was the cinema. This was the pre TV era. There were so many cinemas to satisfy me. Goldenhill was within walking distance. 

Then there was Kidsgove I could walk or take the bus. My brother and me/I were given half a crown each to go to the pictures as we called it then. I took the bus, went in the 1/6's, bought chips after the film and took the bus home, leaving no change. My brother walked there, went in the nines and walked back. He saved 1/9. Oh yes, and now he is a millionaire and I am practically broke.

I remember the cinema in Tunstall. It was called Barber's. Like most cinemas at that time, everyday there two films, an A film and a B film at each showing and there were two showings a day. I think they were called first house and second house.

There were two programmes a week. One ran on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and a second on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

But an extra delight for children was Saturday morning Chum's Club.

Gosh what a smorgasbord of delights that was. Trailers for the forth coming films, a serial which always ended on a cliff hanger and then of course the main film. This would usually be a comedy if I remember correctly. Bud Abbot and Lou Costello, Laurel and Hardy and my favourite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

But the main attraction for the girls before all these delights was a live performance by a local boy. A tall blond, heart throb with a voice like an angel. The screams and shouts of the girls almost took the roof off. Now I can't even remember his name.

In my teens it was always Second House on Saturday. We, that is my friends and I used to queue outside the cinema at 7.30 because although the film began at 8.00 cinemas were so popular that we needed to be first to enter in order to get a good seat. Oh and there was another reason. We were saving places for the lads who were in the Plough which was across the street. They were drinking - under age drinking.

The main subject of the films, was WAR. The second world war of course. US versus Germany. I am sure Japan featured too, The other main subject was cowboys and indians. The cowboys always won of course. The truth later proved the portrayals of the Old West to be outdated and often offensive. Of course there was also a plethora of Hollywood musicals and love stories. The famous scene of Fred Astare singin' in the rain is still frequently played on TV.

But it wasn't tap dancing and singing games that featured in our outside play. That was a time when we played in the street. No, we always played cowboys and indians or armies. Everybody wanted to be a US soldier or a cowboy never a German or an Indian.

Of course all enactments featured guns. Shouts of 'Bang,Bang, your dead. Lie down'.

'No I'm not, I'm only wounded.' Was the usual often repeated script.

After a night at the pictures, the next day the boys re-enacted the whole film in the playground remembering every action word and gunshot.

Looking back, I see how a whole generation was indoctrinated.

This leads to an addiction I have today, American politics. I remain puzzled and enraged that the word immigrant never refers to the present population but is outraged against the people trying to enter the so called land of the free. There is rarely a mention of the indigenous people. What I find worse is that the American Indians cared for the land and animals far better than the present occupants.

Of course the same is true of Australia. Australia's first people—known now as Aboriginal Australians—have lived on the continent for over 65,000 years. Diverse and culturally distinctive, they are represented by more than 250 distinct language groups spread throughout Australia.  About 3 percent of Australia's population has Aboriginal heritage.

But the origins, and fate, of Australia’s native peoples are still the subject of heated debates—ranging from social disparities to legal representation, and even whether their genocide can really be considered a genocide.

I have to stop here because there is so much to say. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which  would make them the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.

Now don't get me started on Africa.