I WAS pleased to see the new front of house of the old Majestic Cinema, in Bondgate, Darlington (Echo, July 23).

It brought back many happy memories for me.

In the late 1930s I was training to become a cinema projectionist.

My training started at the Court Kinema and on my second year my chief made arrangements to go to the Majestic to see their switchboard backstage as it was at that time the best in the north.

Even trainee electricians had to go backstage. At that time all places of entertainment were on gas light for the secondary service due to possible power failure.

The battery room had about 20 batteries on charge. When we were called up during the war the usherettes had to take over while we were away.

I went into the Army Kinema service and in late August 1944 I was giving the job to open the Cine Normandy, in Rogen.

We screened The Sea Hawk, with Errol Flynn, to a complete full house.

I got on well with the chief projectionist. He was my age and spoke no English and I spoke no French but I stayed with him for one month before moving on to start the Radi Cine at Robaix.

At the end of the war I was part of a team taking out all the equipment from German military camp cinemas – why we didn’t know.

On demob. I was a relief projectionist to Darlington, Bishop Auckland, Stockton, Middlesbrough and Sunderland.

But I spent a while at the old Majestic, now the Odeon.

My saddest moment was when the Court burnt down and the cinemas closed.

I went to them all to see equipment taken out and saw them demolished. I was invited to see the three new screens at the Regal ABC. Even then the chief said to me, ‘The job’s not like it was’. So then I started a mobile cinema in south west Durham and the Dales.

Alas all of it has gone now.

When I was in the cinema in the 1930s they all had the old turntables for the talkies. Even when the old Majestic closed down, we found old sound discs 16-inches in diameter and about 1/4” thick.

TH Sellars, Guisborough.