AFTER 70 years, we ask a shocking question about the £60,000 blaze which killed an elderly widow and gutted a Darlington cinema: Was it arson? A policeman who was in the burning building in 1947 thinks it may have been.

Regular readers will know that to commemorate the first new cinema to open in Darlington in 75 years, we’ve been running a series about the town’s old cinemas.

They may even know by heart by now the terrific trivia that, by 1939, Darlington had more cinema seats per head of population than any other town in Britain, with eight purpose-built cinemas and another five or six venues also showing films.

The record didn’t last long because early in the morning on August 13, 1947, the 1,250-seat Court Kinema, in Skinnergate, burned down, as Memories 294 told.

The Northern Echo:

“I was inside when the roof fell in and injured Fireman Bowerbank,” says Ron Willis, of Hurworth, pictured above, who was a 20-year-old police constable at the time.

“It was just a mass of burning materials. The roof came down and pushed the walls out.

“I only got a burn across my cheek, but I had to help Mr Bowerbank out because he had fractured his arm.”

The roof fall had fatal consequences for Margaret Iceton, 76, who lived in a cottage in British School Yard, beside the cinema. She had been evacuated in her nightshirt but returned, accompanied by a police sergeant, to collect a pair of shoes. She was buried beneath rubble and was dead when she was extricated some two hours later.

“I very much doubt she should have been allowed to go back,” says Ron. “We had already got her out once.”

The blaze destroyed the cinema, which had opened on February 11, 1913.

“There was no cause found,” says Ron, “but I thought someone had broken into the place, looking for something to steal, and to hide their tracks had set fire to the building.

“I don’t think it was an accidental fire.”

We’ll return to our cinema story in future weeks.