It started with a Brenda Lee YouTube video I viewed. Suddenly, the decades melted away, and I realised I had actually seen her in person. Not on a screen, but right there in front of me, in my home town of Plymouth, Devon, England.
It was 1963, and I was employed as an usherette at the ABC Cinema at Derry’s Cross. Built in 1938 as the Royal Cinema, this grand Art Deco landmark was later renamed the ABC. (Associated British Cinemas)
By the sixties, with its massive capacity of over 2,400 seats divided between the stalls and the circle, it had become a premier venue hosting not just up-to-date films, but major live music and concert tours.
The ABC Cinema, in 1972
Looking back at 1963, I realise I did not just witness any ordinary concerts; I was right on the cusp of full-blown Beatlemania. Whether it was Helen Shapiro’s tour earlier that year, in March 1963, when the Beatles were supporting her as just another gig on the bill; or that breathless night on November 13th, 1963, when they returned as the main attraction (right before With The Beatles dropped), I was standing right in the middle of cultural history.
Back then, life as an usherette was non-stop. We worked from 1 pm to 10 pm. The cinema operated on continuous showings: first a low-budget ‘B’ film, then Pathé News, Pearl and Dean advertisements, and finally the big ‘A’ film everyone had come to see.
Because people came and went throughout the day, the auditorium lights only went up after the ‘B’ film. That was our cue to head down the aisles with huge, heavy trays strapped around our necks, stand in a blinding searchlight and serve ice cream of all flavours, small drinks, and chocolate bars. In those days, I was so skinny that those trays constantly bruised my hip bones! When the films were playing, we had to walk up and down the aisles, shine our torches and direct patrons to their seats.
Then there were the Saturday morning children’s shows—cartoons and serials that were wonderfully rowdy, noisy, and entirely chaotic with zero crowd control.
I vividly remember walking down the aisle with my heavy tray one Saturday morning only to discover one of the “little monsters” had strung a rope right across my path. I stopped just in time, with the rope grazing my ankles, while the kids on either side groaned in deep disappointment. I hated Saturday morning shifts, especially if I’d had a good night out on Friday!
By the end of a weekday shift, after breathing in the thick haze of cigarette smoke—because everyone smoked in the cinemas back then—my red ABC uniform, complete with lapel badges and a red belt, stank of smoke by the time I got home.
In the midst of all this routine, the cinema also hosted the biggest pop stars of the decade, and I saw them all:
Pictured below: Billy Fury, Brenda Lee, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Helen Shapiro, and Joe Brown and the Bruvvers.
I suddenly found myself remarkably popular with school “friends” I hadn’t seen since leaving school, all of a sudden writing to me to ask for “front seats”!
But since I wasn’t really interested in music back then—I could take it or leave it—it all felt like business as usual. By the 13th of November, 1963, The Beatles were back again to play at the ABC Cinema, but this time, as the headliners.
The support acts were The Kestrels, Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, the Vernon Girls and comedian Frank Berry.
The Beatles ABC Cinema 1963
That evening in November, when they were now much more famous, I set off for my usual shift. I remember being very surprised to see hordes of girls outside the cinema, and having to fight my way up to the glass doors of my workplace, where the supervisor was manning the door to keep screaming girls out and help us, staff, in!
I could not understand what all the fuss was about. The Beatles played two shows that night, and the screams made my ears ring all night!
Our job was to stay in the auditorium to make sure nobody fainted or tried to climb the stage. Thankfully, apart from the screaming, everyone stayed in their seats—we didn’t even need barriers or security standing up front like they do today.
After the show, we all went back to our staff room, changed and waited outside the staff room to see the Beatlesslip out the back door to the Westward Television studios right next door to the cinema for an interview.
I should have asked them for their autographs! None of us did. We just locked up and headed straight for the pubs. Missing out on those autographs? I bet I was not alone; thousands of kids and staff must have felt that exact same way before realising just how massive those lads from Liverpool would become.
For decades, I hardly ever thought about it. But seeing Brenda Lee on screen after all these years brought it all rushing back—the heavy trays, the smoky air, the red uniform, and the front-row seat I had to the birth of musical history.
Staff of the ABC Cinema during the Helen Shapiro Show.
Fellow Usherettes with our trusty torches
Left: Mavis, Marian and Pat.
NOTE:
Over the years, the cinema closed and reopened. It remained a single 2,400+ seat venue until May 1976, when it was temporarily closed and subdivided into a triple-screen cinema and bingo hall.
It finally closed as ‘Reel Cinemas’ in 2019 and is currently the subject of a community campaign aiming to restore it as a cultural and entertainment venue
NOTES
Genealogy Ensemble 