A Night At The Pictures

A Night at the Pictures

Ever since its founding in 1927 the Miners Welfare Hall has played a major role in then social life of the village as in a myriad others. To many its main recent use would have been as a cinema. Josie Duke has found this paper programme which has miraculously survived in mint condition since January 1973. It describes the allure of a night at the cinema in glowing terms which may betray the fact that the cinema as a medium was under a bit of pressure owing to the recent advent of colour TV and other social changes.

Click on picture for a detailed view

“Give yourself a “Break”. Come to the “Pictures”. Still the cheapest evening’s entertainment you can get. TODAY’s films in Glorious COLOUR on the best screen in the area.”

Several features of the programme are worthy of note and show how times have changed rapidly in Resolfen. Firstly, prices are an eclectic mix of decimal and pre-decimal money since the UK had only experienced our present coinage for a few years at this time. Prices are also very reasonable even taking inflation into account.

Secondly, the traditional Welsh Sunday is clinging on since the auditorium was used for the pictures five nights a week with Wednesday given over to a presumably packed Bingo session since the Snowball was £25 with entrance only 10p. No films were shown on a Sunday.

A third notable feature was that a night at the pictures was certainly a longer affair than you would receive today at your present day multiplex. The main feature was supplemented by a shorter usually inferior film to pad out the evening and the audience would be given the chance to stock up on ice cream, sweets or Kia Ora Orange drink in the interval. The nature of the films was also various with historic sagas such as “Anne of the Thousand Days” juxtaposed with the notorious “Straw Dogs” X film starring Susan George and Dustin Hoffman which is still banned from showing on British TV owing to its violent rape scene. How many present day Resolfen marriages began by “snogging” in the semi darkness of the back row on a Saturday night?

Finally, the Manager was also described as the Secretary. After all, this was a service provided by the Committee of the Welfare Hall and not a commercial enterprise. This arrangement still survives successfully in a few villages in the South Wales coalfield notably Brynaman Welfare Hall and Cinema.

Sadly, the future of Resolfen Miners Welfare Hall as a cinema is fading into memory. How quickly an everyday aspect of our daily lives has become an object of history.

( Apologies - the post appears underlined in plces for some reason)