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An Aberdeen Journals Archive photograph of the City Cinema on George Street in 1963. The cinema is showing a war film called Battle of the Beach starring Audie Murphy. The City Cinema at 197-199 George Street was opened by Aberdeen Picture Palaces on 4th November 1935. The building, the main part of which was tucked away behind George Street, was designed by Thomas Scott Sutherland. Michael Thomson in Silver Screen in the Silver City explains that until after the second world war, the City's stock and trade was showing second-runs and lesser features from the programmes of up-town cinemas. The City was also popular with Aberdeen's crowds of holidaymakers in the 1930s. See Thomson's book for more on the design and history of this cinema. The final film shown at the City was Sign of the Pagan on 20th July 1963. The venue was then converted at a cost of £300,000 into a two-floor bowling alley. Originally called ABC Bowl (later known as the Aberdeen Bowl, Super Bowl and Mega Bowl), it opened on 1st May 1964 with celebrity guests Oliver Reed, Jess Conrad and Julia Foster. The bowling alley, and with it what remained of the City cinema, was demolished in 2007 to make way for an apartment block and the Hilton Garden Inn hotel. [Information primarily sourced from Silver Screen in the Silver City (1988) by Michael Thomson] Image © Aberdeen Journals Ltd.

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This image was digitised from Artistic Aberdeen: A Sketch Book (1932) by W. S. Percy. The book describes the scene as follows: "Don Street and the Town House of Old Aberdeen. At the Town House the High Street of Old Aberdeen, or the Aulton, as it is more commonly known, breaks into two thoroughfares: the Chanonry, which leads to Oldmachar Cathedral, and Don Street which goes on past the estate of Seaton to the Brig o' Balgownie. All this part of the town of Aberdeen is rich in academic and ecclesiastical history, which has been told in volumes numerous."

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A broadside from 1758 presenting the case of Peter Williamson (1730-1799), who, in his pamphlet French and Indian Cruelty Exemplified in the Life and Various Vicissitudes of Peter Williamson, denounced the merchants of Aberdeen for having been involved in the kidnapping of children to be sold as slaves in America. Williamson claimed to be one of those children who suffered this terrible fate. Though to this date there is no historical documents to definitively confirm Williamson's account. On his return to Aberdeen, the town's magistrates accused Williamson of calumny, imprisoned him, and forced him into an admission of guilt. They also publicly burned the offending pages of his pamphlet in the Town Square and banished him from Aberdeen on the 23rd June 1758. Only ten days later, on the 3rd of July 1758, this broadside shows that Williamson had found witnesses to prove he was born in Aberdeenshire from honest parents and that he had told the truth in his book about his experiences. The lower half of this broadside is the statement from Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, an Aberdeen County Justice of the Peace, that indicates that he had been presented with evidence of Williamson's claims and that he believed them to be true. Wrongfully persecuted, Williamson was ready to prosecute the merchants of Aberdeen for the "illegal behaviour" they had inflicted on him. Williamson eventually won his his lawsuit in 1762. The broadside both makes the case for Williamson in his dispute with the Aberdeen magistrates and serves as an advertisement for his book. Aberdeen City Libraries hold a number of books about the life and work of Peter Williamson and he has an entry on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by P. J. Anderson, revised by A. W. Parker (available online with an active library membership).

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