Published at 15:41, Wednesday, 23 December 2009

SIR – Come on you Whitehaven folk, let’s get the Gaiety open again!

HIDDEN GLORY: One of Dave Wilson’s pictures inside Whitehaven’s old Gaiety Cinema

Great pictures in The Whitehaven News (“Silent Cinema”, December 10) but the only feature I recognised was the picture of the decorative mouldings. There must have been some serious renovations after I left Cumberland.

The cinema I remember had a wooden partition over most of the back wall, allowing patrons to move from one side of the stalls to the other along a kind of corridor.

To the right of the screen was a clock and underneath were the toilets. The ‘coming attractions’ were announced on the front wall of the cinema in glass frames.

The queue for the stalls went up the side of the cinema (Hicks Lane) beside the Waverley Hotel.

The most frightening film I saw there was the original version of King Kong (I didn’t sleep for three nights!) On another occasion, my girlfriend of the time insisted I take her out of the cinema because the film frightened her. I was furious. The film on that occasion was The Quatermass Experiment with Brian Donlevy. I could go on and on and...

Len WATSON

Maidstone, Kent

SIR – [The Gaiety Cinema] has such an impressive interior and should be put to good use, for the purpose it was designed for: a cinema in Whitehaven. Come on folks, you can make it happen – a very impressive venue in town.

Tony MESSENGER

SIR – I could not recall having seen the obvious suggestion in The Whitehaven News that the Gaiety should be temporarily reopened while transport difficulties inhibit visitors to the Plaza.

I suppose there is a counter-argument, that the more we adapt to the present situation, the less urgency there will be to do the other obvious thing – making a temporary road bridge at one of the two damaged crossings of the River Derwent in Workington.

David BRADBURY

Ramsey Drive, Parton

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk