Last updated at 15:33, Thursday, 10 December 2009

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IT has a bit of a Marie Celeste feel about it now, having brought down the final curtain six years ago.... but there are those who feel strongly that Whitehaven’s last cinema, The Gaiety on Tangier Street, could and should be saved.

The Gaiety was built in the 1920s with its grand opening on Saturday, April 15, 1922, when the first film to be shown was Home, featuring Mildred Harris Chaplin.

The new cinema seated 1,480 people with the balcony holding 450. As the mining industry boomed in Whitehaven, so did the moving picture business. When it opened it was said to be “the largest and most comfortable cinema in the north of England’’.

Audience numbers were to be dramatically hit by the growth of television and in 1976 the building was split in half with the cinema remaining upstairs in the balcony and the lowers stalls converted over to that leisure-time phenomenon, bingo. That alteration reduced cinema seats to 264.

In 2002 the cinema celebrated its 80th anniversary before shutting its doors for good just more than a year later in August 2003.

It was a bitter blow to the local community and despite a petition and a Save It campaign, spearheaded by the town’s teenagers, the Gaiety Cinema, the borough’s only surviving cinema, could not be kept open.

Owners Graves (Cumberland) Ltd, which also runs the Plaza multiplex at Workington, had been losing business at Whitehaven following the opening of its £3million 970-seater Plaza multiplex in 2001. Audience figures at the Gaiety had fallen to less than 300 a week and the facility could not be sustained. Nine jobs were lost but the bingo hall remained open and is still operating.

Dave Wilson, 38, of Whitehaven (Northwest Photography) has recently taken pictures for posterity of the interior of the Gaiety and was amazed to find it remained unchanged. He obtained permission to enter the building (thanks to Jennifer McGrady and Vince Hughes at Workington) and was impressed to see everything was still as it was, still working, being kept heated, and nothing had been removed..... there were still film posters on the walls.

“It was just as if someone had just left and switched off the lights. It is absolutely beautiful. I was so happy to see it is still in such good condition. It has a unique charm and I feel strongly that it needs to be kept; perhaps a preservation committee could be established. It could still be used for showing films, it just needs a bit of a clean. I would be happy to volunteer my time to help.’’

During its long history the cinema had screened everything from Al Jolson’s minstrel performances to 21st century box-office hits like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Its longest-serving staff member was Archie Robertson who retired aged 78 and died in March this year. Archie had witnessed everything from the days of Chaplin and the Marx Brothers to the modern blockbuster releases. He had been doorman for 50 years. Projectionist Abe Tighe had worked there until 1954 and a long-term customer was Tom Durham, who was 80 on the cinema’s 80th anniversary.

In the early 1950s The Whitehaven News carried a two-column advertisement running the whole length of the page for seven local cinemas, of which the Gaiety was one.

Len Watson grew up in Whitehaven in the 1940s and 50s and, as a cinema buff, spent many a happy hour at the Empire, the Queens and the Gaiety. There was also the Ritz and the Oxford at Workington then.

Len, who has a collection of framed photographs of Whitehaven’s cinemas on the wall of his Kent home, recalls: “The cinemas were divided into three: the front stalls, commonly referred to as the ‘dog end’, were for the ‘riff-raff’ and cost fourpence. I often frequented these seats when funds were low – which was fairly often. The seats were wooden but the excitement of the show always outweighed the discomfort. Then there were the back stalls that extended to the rear of the auditorium. Upstairs was the gallery, the best seats where, when we were older, we would take our girlfriends.

“The highlight of my young life was the Saturday matinee, where I thrilled to one of many serials, as well as any old Western that was showing.

“The demise of the Gaiety, the last of the town’s cinemas, was very sad indeed.

“To me, a town without a cinema suffers a huge entertainment and cultural void.’’

First published at 15:34, Wednesday, 09 December 2009
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk