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You searched for: More Like: 'Nostalgia at Lourin Fair'
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Friday Rag Fair
1291 A view, taken by Aberdeen's celebrated Victorian photographer George Washington Wilson, of the Friday Rag Fair in the Castlegate. Dates from before 1893 when the buildings at the far end of the Castlegate were demolished to make way for the present Salvation Army Citadel (opened 1896). Provost James Morrison Snr
2025 A portrait painted by James Alexander of Provost James Morrison Snr (1665 - February 1748). He served as Provost of Aberdeen from 1730-1731. On his death, aged 84, The Aberdeen Journal records that he died "with an unblemished character. He behaved himself in every situation of life in such a fair, straight way, as procured him the universal love and affections of his fellow citizens, and his relations by his death lost a most affectionate parent and sincere friend." ABC Cinema
2817 The shiprow entrance to the ABC Cinema. It is advertising showings of It Happened at the World's Fair, The Scarlet Blade and The Son of Captain Blood. Aberdeen Cinemas: Regal / ABC / Cannon
3397 A photograph of the Union Street entrance to the ABC Cinema in around 1963. The canopy above the entrance advertises It Happened at the World's Fair with Elvis Presley and Joan O'Brien. This was an MGM film and the ABC had first rights to films from this company, a big draw for the public.
Prior to ABC's arrival in Aberdeen in 1954, MGM films were previously first shown in Aberdeen Picture Palace's Capitol on Union Street.
This cinema on Shiprow and Union Street had been known as the Regal since opening in 1954. In March 1962 ABC rationalised the names of its cinemas and this venue, along with many Regals around the UK, became known simply as the ABC. An earlier Regal vertical sign was replaced by the new one we can see in this photograph.
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson] Aberdeen Cinemas: Regal / ABC / Cannon
3398 This photograph shows the Shiprow entrance to the ABC Cinema (formerly the Regal) in 1963. In addition to current screenings of It Happened at the World's Fair, the cinema is also advertising an upcoming double bill of The Scarlet Blade and The Son of Captain Blood.
Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) explains that the large, canopied entrance on the Shiprow gave access to the stalls foyer, and this could also be reached from the Union Street entrance via various lobbies and doors. A signalling system coordinated between the front and side box offices and neither entrance was allowed priority over the other. Aberdeen Cinemas: Star Picture Palace
3409 A photograph of the Star Picture Palace at the junction of Park Street and South Constitution Street in the 1920s. The cinema was an undertaking of Bert Hedgley Gates in partnership with his wife Nellie and with financial backing from local businessmen. Bert Gates was among Aberdeen's most influential cinema proprietors. He would go on to be the founding managing director of Aberdeen Picture Palaces, a highly successful company that would play a key role in cinema exhibition in the city.
The ever useful Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson details much of the history of the Star Picture Palace, known as The Star or Starrie, and the activities of Bert Gates. The cinema was converted from the former premises of the Aberdeen East End Mission. Its name was thought to come from a red-stained glass window in the shape of a star that was a legacy of its previous use. The Star's auditorium stood on the south side of South Constitution Street and its entrance, as shown here, was at 23 Park Street, underneath a block of tenements.
The cinema opened in March 1911 and showed a mixture of films and music. Bert and Nellie would stand behind the screen and add dialogue, sound effects and commentary to the silent films being shown. They also added topical references and allusions to well-known local figures. Both had backgrounds as stage artistes and their performances became a popular feature of the Star.
In 1913 the successful cinema was expanded, doubling its capacity, as Aberdeen Picture Palaces acquired the building and some houses to its rear. Thomson states that the remodelled Star was advertised as "Absolutely the Finest and Most Handsome Interior Out of Glasgow".
The Star had direct competition when the Casino cinema opened just around the corner on the north side of Wales Street on 7th February 1916. Thomson suggests that Gates responded to the Casino's popular and innovative cine-variety performances by programming his own varieties and mini revues. These included Miss Madge Belmont, "America's Handcuff Queen" and Birteno's Golden Grotto, "the most gorgeous electrical dance spectacle ever seen in Aberdeen - a display of serpentine and fire dancing by Belle Lumière, with marvellous kaleidoscopic colour effects".
The Star Picture Palace showed its first talkie, King of the Khyber Rifles, on 13th October 1930. In November 1932 the cinema suffered a fire caused by a dropped cigarette. The damage was relatively minor however and only put the Star out of action for a fortnight.
By the beginning of the second world war, the area around the Star was becoming depopulated as housing on Hanover Street and Albion Street was demolished to make way for the new Beach Boulevard. Bert Gates acquired control of the Casino in November 1939 with the idea of combining it with the Star to create one super-cinema that fronted onto the new thoroughfare.
Thomson explains that business was concentrated on the Casino and later that month the Star closed as a cinema for good. In 1939/40 it served as an indoor fun-fair and as the Boulevard Ballroom for the remainder of the war. The Star building was demolished, at the same time as the Casino, in 1971 to make way for a housing development.
Michael Thomson addresses the use of jam-jars for cinema admission in the first appendix to Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988). This includes an account of the Star Picture Palace from Ethel Kilgour who remembered going there as a child. Her description concludes as follows: "It was a great little cinema, jam-jar entry fee and all, and it was a form of escapism for so many children in a world so depressed between the wars".
[Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson] Steam Rally
4219 This photograph shows a steam engine rally with onlookers admiring the traction engines Wizard and Olive. This is most likely a Bon-Accord Steam Engine Club Rally and Steam Fair in Hazlehead Park.
In the centre of the photo is the traction engine Wizard. This tractor, as indicated by its signage, was owned by William McConachie of Tarland (c.1893-1981).
Programmes for Bon-Accord Steam Engine Club events, such as that for their 1986 fair, states that Wizard was Aveling no. 1139, registration number SO2182. Built by Aveling and Porter in 1926 it was an 8 horse power compound piston valve traction engine. It was built for Moray County Highways for road maintenance, before being acquired by McConachie. Following William McConachie's death in 1981, the engine, plus two others, was owned by his son William "Bill" McConachie (1929-2013), a former policeman and chairperson of the Bon-Accord Club.
The man standing in front of the engines, wearing a suit and glasses, may be William "Bill" McConachie.
Olive was Foster no. 14289, reg. no. SA5264. Manufactured in 1919 by Foster Wellington it was a 5 horse power compound tractor. It is described as "an ex-W.D. engine acquired by Godsman & Sons, New Pitsligo, for hauage of peat from the mosses in the district, then sold to a threshing contactor at Mintlaw Station and later used for sawmill work, until bought by the late William McConachie, Tarland. Now owned by his daughter Jean of Breda, Alford" (1986 programme, page 26).
An obituary for William "Willie" McConachie can be found in the Press & Journal of 28th October 1981 on page 4. It states that this well-known traction engine enthusiast was a publican before taking over the Mill of Wester Coull Farm. He had four engines which he took to rallies all over Scotland. He and his wife Olive, no doubt the naming inspiration for the above engine, were honorary members of the Bon-Accord Steam Engine Club. William was also a local Justice of the Peace.
This photo is likely dates from the 1970s or 1980s and is from a collection of slides donated to Aberdeen City Libraries by Aberdeen City Council's publicity department. |