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Hillsborough Kinema


Guest J R Wrigley

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Guest J R Wrigley

Hillsborough Kinema was on Procter Place - not to be confused with Hillsboroough Park Cinema on Catch Bar Lane. ( Incidentally Procter Place was once called Crookes Place.) It opened in 1912 and closed on 23rd July 1966. The Hillsborough Shopping Centre now occupies the site.

I know of only one photograph that shows the entrance at night. Its copyright belongs to Sheffield Newspapers but it can be seen on page 65 of Richard Ward's book "In Memory of Sheffield Cinemas". This book was published at £6.95 in 1988 and is now much sought after. I have seen copies offered for as much as £25.00.

Living on the Wisewood Estate as a child the Kinema was our favourite place. Every month they would publish a card of forthcoming attractions which we eagerly scanned for our favourites - Tarzan or George Formby. The price of admission in the 1930s was four pence for children (less than 2p today) and so visits were not common as the money often had to come out of Dad's beer money.

I talked once to a chap who was even older than I and he remembered the period of silent films at The Kinema. He said that children were sometimes cajoled to "come and sit next to me luv and read me the words - I've got a nice bag of sweeties". That was back in the 1920s before the "talkies" appeared. For myself I remember that when a film was classified "A" it meant that children had to be accompanied by an adult. So the plea went up "will you take us in please, mister". Many often obliged providing you had got the pennies and in that way we were able to see films like "King Kong".

During the War I belonged to the Air Training Corps (ATC) and volunteers were sought to make a collection at The Kinema in aid of the RAF Benevolent Fund. This seemed too good to be true - free admission! The film was "Gunga Din" but after I had seen the film over and over again I was utterly fed up with it.

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Great story, I remeber as akid that cinemas would start the movie again just a few minutes after it had finished instead of having set times. Was it the same in day??

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Next to the Cinema was a Scout Hut thing, adjoining that Hillsborough Tabernacle Church, or so I remeber, this backed onto Hawksley Avenue, where we used to play football on a large concrete area; this is turns out was a site hit by German bombs during the Blitz, never wondered at the time why a section of the street was missing, just thankful for somewhere to play football.

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Guest tsavo

Great story, I remeber as akid that cinemas would start the movie again just a few minutes after it had finished instead of having set times. Was it the same in day??

It was called "continuous performances" in the adverts.

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There is a photo of the Hillsborough Kinema House on page 80 of Clifford Shaw's Images Of Sheffield Sheffield Cinemas ISBN 0752422936 published 2001.

Best Wishes

Ruth

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I remember the Hillsborough Kinema with great affection. I still have programmes for the late 1950s and early 1960s. We used to go every Saturday evening to the 8.30 performance. The first house began at 6.15. Later, the performances became continuous from 6 but despite getting two full length feature films it was the beginning of the slow end. Up to that point people had regular bookings with the same seats saved for them week after week.

Occasionally, when a lengthy film was shown, like "A Farewell to Arms", the first house was advanced to 5.45 and we didn't get out of the second house until 11. The downside of this was that it was too late to get my normal 3d worth of chips from the Worrall Road Fish & Chip shop!

Happy days!

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Hillsborough Kinema , Proctor Place (formerly Crookes Place). Opened November 1912. Closed 23 July 1966 and the building demolished

PictureSheffield link

I remember the Hillsborough Kinema with great affection. I still have programmes for the late 1950s and early 1960s. We used to go every Saturday evening to the 8.30 performance. The first house began at 6.15. Later, the performances became continuous from 6 but despite getting two full length feature films it was the beginning of the slow end. Up to that point people had regular bookings with the same seats saved for them week after week.

Occasionally, when a lengthy film was shown, like "A Farewell to Arms", the first house was advanced to 5.45 and we didn't get out of the second house until 11. The downside of this was that it was too late to get my normal 3d worth of chips from the Worrall Road Fish & Chip shop!

Happy days!

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My Nanan and her sister, who lived at Loxley, used to go to the first house at the Kinema every Saturday in the summer when the nights were late so Aunty didn't have to go home on the bus in the dark. I had my first ever date there when I was 14 we went to see The Sandpiper. I can remember the young mans name but I won't disclose it here, lol. We met at hillsborough bridge and walked to the kinema from there. 

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