FOR more than 35 years, there was just one cinema in Darlington. Throughout the Eighties, Nineties and Noughties, the town which had boasted the most cinema seats per head of population anywhere in the country at the outbreak of the Second World War, was down to a solitary silver screen.

That was at the Regal – or the ABC, or the Cannon.

This cinema opened at a cost of £50,000 on December 31, 1938, when it had five purpose-built cinemas in the town centre for company, as we have seen in recent weeks.

The Regal, on Northgate, replaced the Theatre Royal, which had been first built in 1868 only to be demolished in 1873, rebuilt in 1881 only to burn down in 1883, only to be restored once more and last until October 10, 1936.

Ahead of the opening of the cinema, the Darlington and Stockton Times said: “Displacing the Victorian façade of the old Theatre Royal which, architecturally, had long become out of harmony with the scheme of things in progressive Darlington, the imposing features of the Regal, representing the most modern in cinema construction, has been the cynosure of thousands of admiring eyes.”

A cynosure, for those unsure, is the centre of attention.

Perhaps to art deco eyes in the 1930s, the Regal looked attractive. Today it looks rather slabby.

The D&S continued: “The Regal is not only an architectural asset to Darlington, however, but is the embodiment of the best scientific knowledge and engineering skill calculated to ensure the utmost comfort for the patron. The seats, of which there are 622 in the circle and 978 is the stalls, are specially designed to give the maximum of comfort, and the carpets and appointments harmonise in colour and luxury with the interior decoration.”

It was certainly modern – it was equipped with the latest Western Electric Mirrorphonic Sound Equipment which meant “the accents and inflections of voices can be heard as though the artists were appearing in person”.

So the Regal joined the Empire (1911), the Arcade (1912), the Court (1913), the Essoldo (1913), the Alhambra (1913) and the Majestic (1932), plus places like the Central Hall and the Hippodrome, and even the Lyric in Middleton St George, showing film.

There was, though, still one more cinema to be built: we shall come to it next week.

LAST week, we were telling of the Argyll Nursing Home in Cleveland Terrace, Darlington, where, just after the war, you could give birth for £13 2s 6d a week. It was a private surgical home, and we were wondering how, in those early days of the NHS, mothers-to-be came to be using it. Afterall, Darlington had a specialist NHS maternity unit in the Greenbank mansion.

Evelyn Kelsey, 92, rang to explain that she gave birth there to her daughter, Pamela Goldsborough of Middleton St George, on May 2, 1949, at the Argyll.

“I went to Greenbank to get booked in but it was absolutely heaving,” she said. “When it was my turn to see the nurse, I was politely told ‘no chance’ – my baby was due the beginning of June and they were fully booked until the end of July. I had no option but to find somewhere else.”

So she wound up in room eight at the Argyll, where her fortnight stay cost £28.

IN MEMORIES 285, we were digging around in the fields at the back of Neasham in search of First World War bullets on the site of the old rifle range. While we were in the village, we asked for information about an old stone, saying “JP 1887”, which has recently been built into a new wall on Teesway facing the river.

John Weighell, the chairman of Neasham Parish Council, was one of several people to inform us that the stone marks the spot of the “Jubilee Pump” which was installed as a celebration of Queen Victoria’s Gold Jubilee in 1887.

“The stone used to be behind the village pump and the well was the other side of the garden wall,” he says. “With the advent of mains water, the pump was removed. Recently new houses have been built on the site which entailed rebuilding the wall and the parish council insisted that the stone was reinstated in its original place.”

Sadly, no one can provide us with a picture of Neasham’s pump. Can you?

IN Memories 282, we were wandering through the ages of Darlington’s Post House Wynd where, for several decades, there used to be a chippy on the north side.

“My nanna, Mary Inston, who passed away in 1997 at the age of 96, worked as a waitress at Hutchinson's Fish and Chip shop in the Wynd for over 20 years,” wrote Tracey Chad. “The seating area was upstairs and she would have to walk up the stairs carrying full trays to the waiting customers.

“It was very popular with Canadian air force personnel when they were stationed at Middleton St George during the war.

“Nanna's cat, Vic, would wait for her on the way home at the top of Four Riggs at midnight knowing that he would receive his treat of fish bits.”

Excellent. We really don’t have enough old cat stories in Memories.