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Belvedere House

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As a rule I tend to avoid nostalgia considering it to be better consigned to the past. However when applied to the very young and carefree days it has many endearing qualities.
It was particularly Mr Saunders report on the Co-op that really set my thoughts in motion and, after a time, I began to recall my early and formative years. My mother, despatching me on errands to the Co-Op and visits to our local cinema: ‘’The Normanton’’.
My nearest route to ‘’our’’ Co-Op was along Harrington Street and for a young chap this was a new adventure that fired my imagination.
On the more practical side the money had to be wrapped in the shopping list, and if I remember correctly a ration book, carefully prepared by my mother. Great care was taken to secure this package away as short pants pockets were notorious for having the inevitable holes in them. Above all walking near the drainage grates was to be avoided at all costs. These, as it is well known by all small boys, attracted like magnets even from a great distance, their dues and taxes from the unwary and careless. Penknives, lucky stones and marbles, especially the greatly prised red and white marbles, known as blood alleys, were all in great danger of being devoured by the grated black holes.
So the errand began by me muttering the mantra 59238, our Co-Op number. Forgetting this number would incur mild ridicule from the Co-Op counter staff and a return journey. The precious ‘divi’ had to be secured at all costs.
In more recent years, in casual conversation, I have often asked friends if they could remember their Co-Op numbers and in almost all instances they can relate it to total and quick recall.
A far cry from the more recent PIN numbers, vehicle registration numbers et al.
Turning into Princess Street and on the corner of Harrington Street it was advisable to remain on the right hand side of the road to avoid the ‘’pig bins’’. These were 2 or 3 bins for the nearby householders to place their green waste for the war effort. They were also quite stinky with rampant bacteria, especially in summer. How could the pigs possibly eat it?
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Diagonally across the road from the pig bins was the first shop that held my youthful fascination, Mr Smith the Butcher, known locally and unsurprisingly as ‘’Butcher Smiths‘’.
Mr Smith was source of great curiosity, as he never seemed to move in a normal way,
Instead he was constantly dancing around his shop between the counter and chopping block in sort of a knee bending shuffle type hopping motion. Rather like a faster that average marionette. I was captivated and enthralled, oh what tales I would have to tell my friends if the chopping and hopping movements were to become un-coordinated and his finger, or more, ended up as a supplementary addition to our meat ration. Of course it never did happen, but it helped to pass the time in pleasant expectancy whilst the pork chops, perhaps the recipients at happier times of the pig bin contents, were cut and wrapped.
Further along the street at the corner of Princes Street and Pear Tree Street, and diagonally across the road from the Co-Op, was a green grocers shop. This was another area of excitement and wonderment. My imagination was in overdrive. A German aeroplane had strafed the house next-door to the green grocers. The top floor bullet-damaged brickwork was plain to see. With futile optimism I scrutinised every inch of the road and pavement looking for a spent bullet that might have been overlooked. The lone German raider was en route to attack Rolls Royce where, as ill luck had it, a number of employees just had just finished their shift. A good number of casualties were caused as the result of this attack. Apart from that incident Mr Hitler thankfully left us alone. God knows what the ghastly consequences would have been in our heavily built up area had Rolls Royce been the target of heavy and continuous air attacks.
Once inside the Co-Op my queuing time was spent in speculation of the aluminium cups climbing to and fro on their catenaries from counter to cashier and back again. The cups traversed upwards and through a first floor aperture to the 2 or 3 ladies employed therein to take the payment issue the change and record the ‘’divi’’, Co-Op style. From my youthful height of about 3 feet I could only see the head and shoulders of these ladies.
They were a jolly lot, always ready to share a joke and banter with the counter staff and customers. The aperture behind which the cups disappeared and where they processed our payment was a square hole. It would have been ideal for a Punch and Judy show; alas the policemen, the stick and the gallows never did join these ladies.
My memories of these past years were also set in motion by Mr Saunders mention of the Cavendish cinema. By a process of reverse thought osmosis my thoughts turned to our local cinema, The Normanton, I have always considered that the Normanton Cinema was a slightly impoverished relation to its better funded and more salubrious competitor: The Cavendish.
The Normanton Cinema was located on the corner of Princess Street and Diary House Road. It was, I suppose, in its hay day from the early thirties to about the late forties. The foyer was quite small and had pictures adorning the walls of early film stars. Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Bette Davis were amongst those

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that I remember. Keeping this station and greeting his patrons was the owner, Mr. Felix, Mrs Felix remained behind the cashiers aperture, taking
the money and issuing tickets. Mr Felix was a dapper man who was always dressed in a smart suit complete with a bowler hat. Mrs Felix was of slight build with short white blonde hair. This was styled in tightly packed permanent waves. They rather reminded me of early 1930’s Hollywood inhabitants with walk on parts in B films who had somehow climbed out off the screen and into real life. Unfortunately for my imagination they were down to earth business people who lacked the glamour and accents of James Cagney and Mirna Lloyd.
The rear entrance leading to the (aptly named) stalls was nothing at all like the posh front one. It was on the opposite side of building with a concrete floor that led to a side entrance door. A timbered wall with a roof gave protection to the customers who clattered down the concrete, The payment point was a hole in the wall that was the size and shape of a medieval archers firing slit, often to be seen in all self respecting castles. Set into this aperture was a security grill. At the bottom of the aperture, hardly reachable for a small boy, was a brass-indented tray into which the clattering of our payment was greeted by the return clatter of an aluminium square cut token. Mrs Felix serviced both the front of house and the arrow slit, swivelling around 180 degrees and during this process changing her expression from hospitable and friendly one for the front house and something less that that for the small noisy boys queuing in the expectancy of another more exciting world.
Having paid and successfully groped for the token well above head height we clattered off to be transported by Errol Flynn and the like to an exciting and colourful land that was far far away from our post war depressed industrial surroundings.
Our last hurdle before feasting on this delight was to successfully negotiate the curtain, this was an old draught excluding blanket hanging inside the entrance door. The vortex caused by opening the door outwards sucked out the unwelcome tentacles that enveloped the uninitiated in an octopus like embrace. The best method of navigation was to pull the door with the right hand, extend the left hand and move forward whilst remembering to keep the head averted and mouth closed. On reflection it was probably a good way to shut up the more noisy patrons, a subtle way controlling the excited chatter.
I can still recall one of the first films that I saw at the Normanton; I could not have been more than 5 or 6. It was ‘’The Return of the Zombies with Bella Lagosi. I remember crouching in fright under the front seat whilst the unfortunate Caribbean based Zombies fell into the sugar processing equipment. Though why I found the sight of this frightening and anticipated with relish the prospects of Butcher Smith severing a limb I shall never know. Funny things are childhood memories.
John Stenson

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