THE news that the Majestic in Bondgate, Darlington, is being restored to something approaching its early 1930s art deco majesty is extremely welcome.

The vertical cladding that has been clagged on to it is appalling, and the last time I looked there was a buddleia growing out of one of its stained glass windows.

This weekend's Memories will contain some pictures of the cinema, which from 1943 was known as the Odeon, so I thought I'd dig out the piece I did on it in 2005:

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SINCE the dawn of the present century, said the deputy mayor of Darlington, Councillor Richard Luck, in 1932, 'the inventions of science have been most prolific but there's none which is having and will have so great an effect upon the life of people as the cinema.

He was speaking as he opened Darlington's eighth cinema - the Majestic, in Bondgate.

This was the height of the silver screen rage. Opening Day was Boxing Day, and 4,500 cinegoers crammed into three houses at the Majestic before the day was over.

The Majestic was a "superluxury cinema" which could seat 1,605 people in comfort - its "air laundry" system changed the air inside the auditorium four times an hour.

It was Darlington-owned - the Mounsey and Hustler families had put up much of the £30,000 it cost to build - and it was Darlington-designed, by architect Joshua Clayton, of High Row, and Darlington-built, by George Dougill, of Elms Road.

Its architectural lighting - flame-effect flounce over the balcony and ceilings which could be "flooded with light of any conceivable colour and intensity" - was "something new and mystifying" for the cinegoers.

But perhaps its biggest feature was its organ, the first in a Darlington cinema. It was a Compton, made in London and "exactly similar" to one being installed in the BBC's Broadcasting House.

"It is built to provide a wealth of orchestral tone-colour, so that it can adequately represent music written for a symphony orchestra or a dance band, " reported the Darlington and Stockton Times, enraptured.

"At the same time, there is much that is sheer organ, giving as thrilling cathedralesque roll.

"In special chambers on the side of the stage are hundreds of pipes of various size and shape, together with a large assortment of special orchestral percussion instruments, such as glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, etc. Every kind of drum, cymbal, triangle, woodblock, tambourine and, in fact, the whole of the percussion family of instruments is there.

"The control of this huge mass of sound-producing material is through the console (or keyboard), which is in the orchestra pit. In addition to being very handsome, with its gold, orange and black finish, this console is a perfectly precise engineering instrument."

Such an organ needed a top-note organist. On the opening day, Frank Matthews, from Sunderland Palladium, performed the honours, and a year later, the Majestic's first resident organist arrived.

His name was Harry Millen, and since alluding to him a fortnight ago, Echo Memories has been overwhelmed by calls and correspondence (thank you, one and all).

He was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in 1895, and was performing on his local church organ at the age of six. At 16, he was appointed private organist to Lady Eva Wemyss at Wemyss Castle and, after a spell in the army, he joined Associated British Cinemas in Scotland.

Darlington, in 1933, was his first posting south of the border, and he stayed here until his death in 1961. He lived in 48 West Crescent - an address a generation remembers because there he gave music lessons.

His role at first was accompanying silent movies; then he filled in the interlude (invariably playing March des Troubadors, remembers Emlyn Warder). Then he started putting on musical turns inbetween the films, and, finally, he started promoting full-blown Sunday evening concerts and recitals.

Big-name organists and artistes of their day - Mark Hambourg, Louis Kentner, Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick - played the Majestic, along with big orchestras.

But Harry - a tiny, wiry fellow - was as big a name as any of them, for from the Majestic he featured in more than 60 broadcasts on BBC radio.

He also had a Saturday night dance band at the Mechanics Institute, featuring George McKeown, the Skinnergate upholsterer, on tenor saxophone.

During the war, Harry put on many fundraising concerts.

Alan Maddison, having been booked as a ten-year-old boy soprano to appear for a week inbetween films, accompanied by Harry on the piano, still has a flyer for a Sunday night show.

Mr Millen took top billing, followed by Reg Thompson, a Middlesbrough comedian and "chromatic mouth organist of merit".

Alan himself sang a couple of numbers, I'll Walk Beside You and Smiling Through, as the show raised money to send parcels to Darlington Corporation Transport men serving overseas.

Joyce Stott remembers Harry holding a competition to see who could compose the best song promoting the war effort.

"He kindly appreciated my effort, but very politely pointed out it was not really quite suitable or commanding enough for his programme, " she remembers.

She also saw Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier appear in a wartime fundraiser on the Majestic stage.

"There was a lot of scandal at the time about them going together when they were married to others, " she remembers. Derek Burn also recalls Harry, for he was his piano teacher.

And so, via the Don Curry Band, at the Baths Hall, to the Ambassador's Dance Orchestra, on to the Darlington Big Band (now the Alf Hind Big Band), formed in the 1960s, to Derek's jazz-orientated offshoot Serenade in Blue, Harry Millen's pupils still make music in Darlington.

Harry's success at the Majestic made it Darlington's favourite cinema.

"The queues used to back up as far as Greenbank Road for the second house, " remembers Ken Johnson.

"A uniformed doorman helped your progress to the cash desk to get your ticket."

In 1943, the Darlington businessmen who had built it ten years earlier for £30,000 sold it for £92,500 to the Odeon chain, headed by Joseph Arthur Rank.

And this seems to have signalled the end for Harry and his wife, who ran the first-floor cafe. There are rumours of troubled health, and Harry retired quite abruptly on January 1, 1944, as general manager and organist of the Majestic.

His replacement was Elton Roberts, fresh from a year at the Winter Gardens and Tower, in Blackpool. Ena Baga probably came next ("my father used to drive her to Blackpool at weekends when she was just starting out", says Ron Holliday).

And then, finally, came a silver-haired lady known only as "Aunty Alice", who accompanied a children's Saturday morning singalong - this appears to have been in direct competition with the Regal, up Northgate, that had an organless singalong, but lyrics on the screen with a ball bouncing above them to assist the singing along (the Empire opposite the library had live skiffle bands).

But as the 1950s drew on, the silver screen age faded, and the Majestic's heyday ended. The organ fell silent. During the 1970s, as the Majestic (since 1943, of course, the Odeon) struggled for survival against television, organ recitals were reintroduced.

But in 1981, it closed. The Compton disappeared and, when it reopened in 1986 as a snooker hall, the only sound in its cavernous auditorium was that of the balls clicking together.