Page138.Html
PART II: 1900 - 1950
Admission was 2s, 1s 6d, 1s and 6d (10p, 7½p, 5p and 2½p).
James Scott, described by the Peeblesshire Advertiser as the ‘leading cinematographist in Great Britain’, became well-established in Peebles, setting up the Burgh Cinema in the Institution Hall and providing the town with a regular programme of silent films which were shown with the accompaniment of piano and violin. Later it became known as the Royal Burgh Cinema and even after the appearance of the Empire and the Playhouse Cinemas it still kept open at the weekends.
Scott built the Empire Cinema in 1914 at the Bridgegate, and it was known as the ‘Pavilion’ until 1918. Changing to the ‘talkies’ in the 1920s, the Empire was a popular and homely place of entertainment for over forty years until 1954. The seating at the back of the auditorium, to the right of the projection box, was a favourite courting place for generations of Peebles lads and lasses.
Later, in 1932, the Playhouse Cinema opened in the High Street. It was wall-to-wall carpeted, luxuriously decorated and, although it operated as a rival to Scott’s Empire, both were well patronised up to the time of the Second World War. Sadly, the latter was destroyed by fire early in the Second World War but was re-opened in June 1943. As radio and then television became dominant as the main sources of entertainment, there was an inevitable decline in attendances at events outside the home and the local cinemas closed down in the years following the Second World War.
The first years of the century saw the emergence of the car, which gradually became part of the town’s way of life by the 1930s. As early as 1907 objections were being made to cars in the town travelling at ten miles per hour. It was claimed that this speeding was a ‘danger to the public, created dust and that several roads were very narrow to be used in this way’. In October that year, a motorcar salesman appeared at the Peebles Sheriff Court and was fined five pounds with the alternative of seven days in prison for having driven his motorcar at a speed of between sixteen and seventeen miles per hour. However, earlier that year a delegation from the town council went in Sir Henry Ballantyne’s car to look at the possibility of using tarmac on the town’s streets. It was reported that for some of them it was a most exciting experience. Treasurer Forester said that they had been somewhat nervous to begin with but he thought they had ‘got imbued with the spirit of the motorist’. Sir Henry Ballantyne, who was
138
Last Page
Contents
Next Page