Who you went with

Arthur

"It was an excuse to take your girlfriend – that's why I can't remember some of those films!"

Ted

"The cinema was the prior place before you went and met Mum and Dad for a cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon."

Joan

"I first started going to the cinema when I was with my Grandmother. I was about three years old… I saw all the gangster films, all the cowboy films with her."

Lil

"Even when you were married, I still went to the cinema at least once a week."

Bobbie

"I started going to the cinema almost as soon as I could walk. In the silent days, my Mum and Dad, actually my Father. They didn't have any babysitters in those days. What I didn't like, I didn't look at."

Joan

"…So the pictures was the place you usually went on your first date. Young girls go into the pubs now, but that was our first date…. If he had a box of chocolates I'd go with him again. If he didn't, I wouldn't go with him again."

Peggy

"Of course we got dressed up for the cinema. You didn't want the girl behind the desk who handed you your ticket to think you'd just come off some slum or something. They were all very smart in their uniforms as well."

O'Grady Court

"It was getting ready, the whole experience of it, the whole night really – going up the pictures, meeting the gang on the corner – they even wrote a song about it, 'Meet the Gang'."

Peggy

"It was late '30s. I remember sitting on my mother's lap watching Felix the Cat. I must have been very young. We went with her sister and my father's sister and my cousin… We were told we'd got to behave ourselves or out we'd go."

Peggy

"When we got older, we went with my friends, not family. It wasn't done to be seen trailing around with your parents."