Speaker for 12th April 2016
Talk by Ken Ward on 'Cinema Advertising in Coleraine'
Coleraine Probus were pleased to welcome back Ken Ward, for an entertaining talk on 'Cinema Advertising in Coleraine' during the 1930s to 1950s. Ken's talk had grown from the gift of a box of materials he had received when the old 'Picture Palace' cinema in Railway Road was closed down in the early '80s.
The cinema (locally know as 'Christies') was originally opened in 1914 and financed by local businessmen - the main shareholder being Alexander Southerland, who had 50 shares for his £50 investment. The advent of 'Talkies' required some major improvements to the cinema (principally the projectors) in the early '30s. The majority of the shares were then sold to Mr and Mrs Christie from Lodge Road to finance this.
It wasn't really until Ken retired from his University post that he started looking at the contents of the box he had been given. Apart from a number of ledgers and cinema documents, the box contained around 120 3"x3" glass slides. These were a unique selection of commercial and local advertisements that were projected on to the screen at the beginning, and between, the evenings' films.
The glass slides varied from national products like 'Persil' and 'Aspro' to services offered buy local shops (many long since lost from trading and peoples memory) as well as notices about local meetings and social events or dances. During the war years, the 'Coleraine Savings Bank' had a number of slides putting over the message that saving with them would help the war effort.
The varied design of the slides was especially interesting. The national products would, naturally, be quite high class, but local shops generally relied on a range of common 'blank' designs that they could just add their name and address to. For local events / meetings etc. a far more basic style was used. These would have the message scratched directly on to a piece of film negative - often in beautiful 'copper plate' style writing - which was then placed between to two thin sheets of glass that made the slide. There must have a been quite a flourishing local trade in this skilled (to say nothing of 'fiddly') work!
Ken's talk drew to a close with a look at his personal favourite slide. This was for 'Morellies', then in Stone Row, and displayed the smart waitress in white pinny and black dress ('French maid' style) and advertising their 'Fish Supper', claiming that they were 'famed for their fish, fresh from the sea daily'.
A vote of thanks was proposed by Norman Gallagher, who said that the members were indebted to Ken for the light hearted and informal manner of the talk. It such an interesting topic, held everyone's attention throughout and made the time fly by.
