Abbeydale Cinema

[westmoors]

I am a Sheffield exile  and i am afraid  I am no longer up to date on the situation, but I understand the building has been saved for the time being, but what happy memories I have of the place. way back to the late 1940's and early 1950's  Tea on the indoor veranda ( at least I think it was a veranda as it had one open side that looked down to the rear of the stalls)  before going either to the cinema auditorioum or to the basement for the dancing,  and a live band ! Not more than a four or five piece usually but in those days this was living in what was a war weary City.

Of course we had to queue around the side of the cinema at weekends for ages in fact I think you had to at most cinemas,with no TV and only a radio with two BBC programs there was little other entertainment for the youth of the day.

[Steel City Reject]

I am a Sheffield Reject, not a native but I spent most of my formative years at Malin Bridge and dragged myself across the City to High Storrs. As an 18-year-old in 1955 I remember going to see "The Blackboard Jungle" at the Abbeydale and being electrified by the main theme on the soundtrack. It was, of course, 'Rock Around The Clock'  by Bill Haley and the Comets. I seem to remember that we were reprimanded for jiving in the aisles. Incidentally, does anyone recall a cinema on Langsett Road opposite Hillsborough Barracks on the site now occupied by Maplin. I have a indistinct memory of it being demolished to make way for a petrol station in the late forties or early fifties.  My father (a vaccinated Wednesday supporter, born in 1901 in Hillsborough) used to claim that the very first movies to be shown in Sheffield were in a building that stood on what is now a car park on Bradfield Road opposite the Jet petrol station.

[Gary Cooper]

i left sheffield for a australia 1970 aged 17 lived in lowedges and batemoor and as a kid used to go to abbydale when i could get the money out of mum the 60s had a morningcartoon and seriel club i think rocket man was the one i remember always left in peril for the next week ,i remember the sasperella shop a couple of doors down,with cold pints in a dimple glass or vimpto ,hot bovril or oxo, brings back a lot of memorys