Your Today in Pictures...

[Melvin England]

Not quite "My Today" but more like "My Tuesday 28th March."


I was on a break for a few days in a static caravan on the Eastern coast of England. I visited the seaside town of Scarborough and stumbled across this oldie worldie Antiquie shop with these little gems for sale...............

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In all my excitement, I totally forgot to check the prices !

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[Graham Ritchie]

Winter is here The news this afternoon, states that if you intend to travel on the Cook Strait ferry tonight, between the North and South Island, and if you are "prone to sea sickness", that it might be a good idea, to put of travelling on tonight's 8.30pm sailing, sounds like fun

[Brian Fretwell]

Most used to be single D cell "battery" powered though, my mum's complete oven was.

[Steve Klare]

It looks like a cooktop to be installed in a kitchen counter.

They all have electric ignition these days: no pilot lights any more.

[Brian Fretwell]

As it shows gas fittings I assume it uses a mains powered ignition system so you don't have to get the matched out to light it. A bit of overkill!!!!

[Chip Gelmini]

a gas stove and it runs on electricity. There must be a reason for this besides making me laugh.....

[Graham Ritchie]

After watching JAWS 2 during the week, it reminded me I still had it on Super8 Scope. I gave up watching long ago as it was fading away. So yesterday I went down to the Heritage Park with the view to do more painting after framing a bit if wood for the screen, but decided to include it in our display that I have slowly been working on. I added "This Is The Movies" Sign during the week, a left over from my Movieland days.

Now as I was just about to leave a group of primary school kids dressed in the Victorian era educational thing the park runs came along. I thought mmmm just wait a minute and see what the reaction is. Straight away one youngster pointed to JAWS . The parent with them said typical to me that's my son, he has good taste I replied . After a quick chat to the parent I found out she had been a regular to our old Movieland cinema and had missed going to it.

Its a small world anyway it shows the JAWS exhibit works.

[Steve Lee]

It was my pleasure Melvin, I love researching old cinemas to see what they originally looked like and how they transition over the years. I just find it fascinating, especially when you can find photos of them.
Here's a couple more that I found.

[Melvin England]

Steve - Thank you sooooo much for the added information about this cinema. I am very touched that you have taken the time to do the research and post here.
I have just shown this to my wife who got quite excited about it. I may have mentioned previously, she used to visit this cinema in the early 1960's with her parents and has a lot of good memories of it in its heyday.
It is sad what they have done to these beautiful buildings............. but at least it is still standing !

[Steve Lee]

Hi Melvin,
I found out a little more information about the Picture House cinema, the shop units below were not connected to the cinema. They were built as individual units because of the gradient of the land, just as a fill in under the stalls.
From what I can understand the stalls area got converted into a car showroom, with the balcony extended over the entire auditorium for the dance school above.
The entrance foyer got originally converted into a pub which is now the pizza restaurant.


Located in Billingham-on-Tees, Cleveland on the corner of South View and Mill Lane. The Picture House was opened in December 1928. It had a 28 feet wide proscenium and by 1930 was equipped with a Western Electric(WE) sound system. It was equipped with CinemaScope in 1955 and the proscenium was widened to 35 feet.

[Chip Gelmini]

I found this quite interesting

[Ed Gordon]

-dancing on an incline builds leg muscles!

(They tried building a roller-skating rink, but everybody kept piling up at the bottom of the hill!)

Here is a photo of a former dancing school graduate:

[Steve Klare]

-dancing on an incline builds leg muscles!

(They tried building a roller-skating rink, but everybody kept piling up at the bottom of the hill!)

[Melvin England]

Yesterday, my wife and I travelled 100 miles north to visit her uncle who has just gone into a retirement home in Billingham in Teeside.

This area is my wife's home territory and at the top of the street where the home is located, I saw this old cinema and she casually remarked how often she would go and see movies there all those years ago. Therefore, photograph needed !

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As you can see, the left hand side has been converted into 6 businesses, the ground floor from the entrance is a pizza house. What is probably not as obvious is that the first floor is now a dancing school. What puzzles me is........ If the original circle is still intact, what on earth is a dancing school doing on a sloping floor ??!! The other question as a film person...... I wonder if there is still any film equipment left behind up in the gods ?

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[Graham Ritchie]

Well the poor old North Island is taking a hammering over the last couple of days with a Cyclone, but down here in the South Island we have been only getting the edge of it, but tonight while watching a movie I thought things were moving around a wee bit, nothing to be concerned about, must be my imagination. Well I just checked and the North Island did get a little bit of a shake a 6.3 and what I had felt, was the shock wave travelling South, so my photo for the day must go to the North Island and hope things improve for them, in saying that its nothing compared to what has happened in Turkey-Syria in recent days.