If I asked Dad for the money to go to the pictures he would draw an oblong in the air with his fingers, point to the wall and stick his thumb up. This was one of Dad’s little jokes with language. I meant I wanted to go to the cinema. He was saying the pictures on the wall were very good. He actually meant wall pictures in general because we didn’t have any pictures on our walls. The only picture I remember was the little one in Gran’s room. It was of Jesus with a lantern standing outside what looked to me like a lavatory door. Gran used to hold it in her hands and cry. The deaf sign for film was to hold your left hand against the left eye pointing like a camera. Then putting the heel of your right hand against the left, you’d wiggle it to back and forth to imitate a camera flicker. To enforce the image you’d also mouth carefully the word, “Filum” Dad would articulate the word with exaggerated mouth movements to make it clear.

School trip to the ABC cinema
(When posing for photographs no one argued with Pat Gott)

Because of this I thought the word was, “Filum” and that’s how I always pronounced it. The kids in Miss Pring class would fall about laughing when she got me to say, “Filum”. She would look at me and say, “Fil-m-m-m.” I would look back and say, “Fil-um-um-um”. The class would all laugh. I was completely baffled I just couldn’t tell what she was on about. I’d say “Filum” they’d all laugh and I didn’t know why.

Theresa couldn’t pronounce her R’s. For a laugh other kids would try to get her to say words with R’s in them. ‘What are those over there Terweeser?” they asked her.

“Twees.” she replied. Sniggering they carry on the tease,
“What kind of twees are they Terweesa?”
She replied with all the superiority of one talking to a lesser stupid beings.
“Werhuden ones, of corwse.

Brefni was the first to point out to me that the film always started after the director’s name came up. I’d never noticed. He was very observant and funny. His description of a film he’d seen always sticks in my mind. It was called, ‘Never Take No For An-Answer’ and it was showing in August 1952 at the Ritz. All the time Brefni was telling the film’s story, about a dying donkey, he dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. Then to show it was really very, very sad he mimed wringing out the tear soaked cloth on the floor. We fell about laughing. I went to see the film and it really was a lump in the throat choker.

The film was about a little Italian boy who made a pathetic living transporting fat people on his little donkey. One day his donkey fell ill. The little boy decided the only way to save it was to have the donkey blessed in the Saint Francis bit of the church. This was where all the children took their sick pets. Apparently, they were not as concerned about wheel chair access then and they certainly didn’t make provision for donkey blessing. The only way to get the donkey into the Saint Francis section was by knocking down a wall, but the priests wouldn’t do it. Meanwhile there was mention of Saint Francis’s treasure being hidden some where in the church.

The little boy eventually decided to go to the Pope. The Pope gave permission - what else could he do? The little boy returned to his dying donkey’s stable to give it the good news. I remember the scene vividly. The boy enters the stable after all his trials and tribulations and he’s too late ... the donkey’s gone.
Is the donkey dead?
No he isn’t, he’s just gone out for constitutional walk.
They knock down the wall in the church and the donkey enters to get blessed. Miraculously the donkey makes a full recovery and goes on to spend the rest of his miserable life carrying fat people. Like Lazarus, it went on to try to die again.

The priests find Saint Francis’s treasure box in the wall. They open the box and in it are a flower and a feather which instantly crumble to dust. I left the cinema confused. If only he had taken 'No' for an answer. The donkey would have been put out of its misery. The priest wouldn’t have found that Saint Francis was obviously an idiot collecting the wrong stuff. If the truth were known, I bet the donkey just wanted a day off. This film was actually the second feature I remember it so well but I can’t remember a thing about the main film which was called, ‘The Happy Family.’

My first visit to the cinema was with Granny Annie. I recall walking back home up Bramston Street scared stiff. The only thing I can remember about what I’d seen was the ending of what may have been a serial. The image is still with me; it was of a surgical boot on a clubfoot, limping, slowly, towards me through dense fog. It didn’t put me off going to the cinema. I went at least twice a week and sometimes three times on Saturday.

We had three cinemas in Brighouse; the Albert, The Savoy and The Ritz. The Ritz was considered the up market posh cinema. Along the back row there were special double necking seats for courting couples. It also had a Saturday morning club, the 'ABC Minors', where we went to see, Flash Gordon and my favourite, Lash LaRue. When Lash picked a flower with his whip, I thought if I could do that I’d be irresistible to girls. The best I could do to impress was to use a bit of dialogue from the Robin Hood film. When leaving a girl instead of just saying, “Good bye.” I’d say, “I’ll pine and fret for your return.” They weren’t impressed.

The other lines from the same film that always stuck in my mind were in a song;
'He robbed the rich to aid the poor, a most unusual practice.
And now that he’s been outlawed he needn’t pay his taxes.'

The cinema showed big films and often had displays related to the film. I remember the manager always in his dinner jacket watching us as we stared at real spears on the display for "African Queen." It was on from the 28th of April 1952 for a week. All the best films were put on for a full week. Later that year in November I sat through, “Gone With the Wind”, which was completely ruined for me by a chap sitting in the next row. Every time any one in the film left a room or rode off, he felt compelled to say, “He’s gone with the Wind.” or “She’s gone with the wind.” I joined in and the cheeky sod turned round and told me to, “Shush.” Then he continued to do it himself ! The scene that stuck in my mind was the dying horse foaming at the mouth. I couldn’t drink milk or eat custard for ages.

One evening in 1952 I sat with Mam and Dad through the film Moulin Rouge, with Jose Ferrer playing the very short-legged painter, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. In a painful scene where they try to lengthen his short legs, a wag in the audience, familiar with a well-known local cure for shortness, shouted,
“Put some horse muck in his shoes !”
The end of the film was a heart-rending scene of Henri dying in bed. If you’ve seen the film you probably didn’t notice, because I certainly didn’t, what was going on under the sheets. My Mam explained to me when we came out of the show. She told me while Henri was dying, under the sheets his legs were growing back to their normal size. Mam knew when you died that God put all your afflictions right. All I could say was, it was a bit bloody late. Funny though, two years earlier, at the Albert cinema we’d seen Jose Ferrer playing Cyrano De Bergerac and Mam Said nothing about God sorting his nose out post-mortem.

I occasionally went to the Albert cinema but my favourite was the Savoy. Some times it was unfairly called a fleapit. I never heard of anyone catching fleas or a disease at the pictures. The place was always sprayed with a perfumed disinfectant ... sometimes when we were sitting there! At the Savoy they used a big, brass pumped, garden spray. Of course, if you were really worried you could get a bag of Dr Thomas’s pastilles to suck and keep germs at bay. These were always advertised in the local paper ‘The Echo.’ The pastilles would of course stop germs getting in your mouth, but what about the sneaky little chaps getting in the other orifices. For total security I imagine you would have to stick a pastille in all seven body orifices. I don’t recall seeing anybody with a couple of them stuck up their nose.

Mr Ambrose Broomhead and Harold ran the Savoy. These two chaps were better known as Sheriff Ambrose and Deputy Harold. It wasn’t unknown for kids in the gun battle scenes to shoot at the screen with slug guns. Gats and Dianes were the weapons used. Webleys were more powerful, but they were too expensive. Deputy Harold was always on the look out for air guns.

To the right and left of the screen tucked right under it were the three-penny rush seats, so called because no one rushed to buy them. They were usually empty. Behind them were the rows of six-penny seats and behind them were the nine-penny seats and then the dearer seats. There was a balcony but I never remember anyone being allowed up there.

The plan was always to buy a six-penny ticket and crawl under the seats into the nine pennies or further back if possible. Deputy Harold was constantly on watch with his spotlight torch.

I wasn’t successful at this caper having distinctive ginger hair and wearing a balaclava to cover it made me look very suspicious. One never wore a balaclava indoors except perhaps to go to bed. I would often find my self practically alone on the back row of the sixpenny’s sitting in front of the packed ninepenny’s. Sheriff Ambrose was not to be beaten. He removed two rows of seats between the sixpennies and the ninepennies. There was now a gap to crawl across and Deputy Harold walked up and down it. There was a rumour about barbed wire.

After every show a film of the Queen in uniform sitting side-saddle on a horse and ‘God save the Queen’ was played. Everyone stood to attention. Some men not only stood to attention they saluted. It was all very serious. No one left the cinema till the film faded and the last note was played. The rot set in when the curtains started to close early, the film of ‘The Queen’ being projected on the curtains. The projectionists obviously wanted to get home early. At the Saturday children’s shows the children knew it was disrespectful to sit during the ‘The Queen’ and worse still to leave during it, so there was always a mass rush to get out before 'The Queen' started. If they were not quite out of the doors and the ‘The Queen’ came on, they would freeze in their track as if caught in a spotlight escaping from prison. Slowly they’d turn round and face the screen and guiltily stand to attention. Gradually when nothing happened to these kids everyone started rushing out during ‘The Queen’. This disrespect was very upsetting to people like Sheriff Ambrose and Deputy Harold. It had to be stopped. Appealing to the children’s sense of patriotism was a waste of time. Then some one had a brilliant idea. I’d like to think it was Sheriff Ambrose. The idea was to make it so the kids didn’t want to rush out during ‘The Queen’. Appeals, pleading, threats and standing in their way to be trampled hadn’t worked. Then one day not a single kid left during ‘The Queen’. What did they do? They simply put it on at the beginning of the show. It was a great bit of lateral thinking. I don’t know if it was Sheriff Ambrose’s idea. He went on to become Mayor of Brighouse.

One day I was first in a queue of two standing at the Savoy paying kiosk. The woman in the kiosk was waiting for Deputy Harold’s signal to let us in. Meanwhile she had a cup of tea, which had a string hanging out of it with a paper tag. She held the tag and lifted up the string on the end of it and a soggy little bag appeared out of the cup. I was fascinated. I asked her what it was? She said it was a tea bag. I asked her where she got it? She said, “It’s a sample.”
It was the first time I’d seen any thing like it. I asked her how much it cost. Whereupon the bigger kid behind me said, “Don’t be stupid it’s a sample, they’re free.”
I never heard of a sample or free tea. Free apples from Canada, yes.
I forgot all about the tea bag sample, until one day Russell Whitely told me a joke, it went like this:

A woman went to the doctors, the doctor said,
“I can’t tell you what’s wrong with you unless you bring me a sample.”
(Strange, I thought why would the Doctor want a tea bag. I’d heard you could tell if a
girl was a virgin with a lettuce leaf or a nicotine stained finger but a tea bag.)
The woman went home and said to her husband,
“What would you be thinking a sample would be?”
He replied. “Indeed to goodness Kathleen, I do not know. You’d better go next door and ask Mrs O’Flaherty.”
Half an hour later she returned in a terrible state. Her hair was ripped out in clumps. She had a black eye; a missing tooth and her dress was ripped to shreds. Her husband was shocked. He said;
“What happened Kathleen?” She replied, “I went next door and I said to Mrs O’Flaherty, nice as can be, I said, what would you be thinking a sample would be? She said to me, "Piss in a bottle".
I said, "Shit in your hat" and the fight was on.”

I laughed politely but I didn’t get it. This joke made me even more confused about what a sample was. It’s interesting how these completely pointless memories stick with you. In later years I’d combine them to create a new idea. The combination of a urine sample and tea bag doesn’t look promising. I was asked for an idea for a simple cheap fancy dress for a toddler. What could be easier to make than a tea bag costume, two squares of cloth with holes for arms and legs? The advantage is, if the kid pisses itself, it adds to the look of the costume particularly when steaming. It’s now a used tea bag.

While I was at art school I got a job as a projectionist at the Savoy. There were supposed to be two of us in the box to work every thing. The only records we had to play were; Swedish Rhapsody, Charmain, Stranger on the Shore and the Queen. After we’d seen the film a few times it would get boring waiting to just change the reels every twenty minutes. If it was a cinemascope film I had to swing an extra lens in front of the projector, this enlarged the picture. It was great fun to swing it away during the film. This caused the picture to suddenly become very tall and thin then back to normal. This alarmed the audience who for a second thought their eyes had gone. The other trick was to move the sound on the stereophonic system. We’d turn the speakers off at the front of the cinema then the middle. The sound would only be coming from the speakers at the back. These we would slowly turn down. The audience would be leaning over the backs of their seats straining to hear the sound whilst looking forward trying to watch the film. If I was really brassed off I’d just join the audience. On some occasions the other projectionist would join me. We’d both sit there determined not to go back to the box first. The film would run off and the audience would shout and stamp
their feet. We’d join in the stamping. I wasn’t bothered I’d seen the film anyway. It was a game of ‘Chicken’ till one of us lost our nerve and rushed to sort it out.

One evening Deputy Harold told me I had to do the show alone. The other projectionist had come in to say that he couldn’t come. I looked through one of the projection windows. It looked mucky to me so I thought I’d clean it. I must have pressed on too hard because the glass fell out onto the balcony. This was the balcony that no one to my knowledge had ever been on. I went and told Deputy Harold what had happened. He gave me a hammer and told me the way to the balcony. I retrieved the glass with its wooden frame and started nailing it back. I hadn’t put Swedish rhapsody on so the cinema was silent. I could hear voices. I stopped hammering and went to look over the edge of the balcony. Deputy Harold had let the audience in. They were all mumbling. It was very strange to be in a completely silent cinema, so by way of explanation I leaned over the balcony and shouted jocularly,
“Don’t panic I’m just nailing the balcony back on.”
A very small audience viewed the show that evening . After the show Sheriff Ambrose sacked me. Apparently the audience had ignored my instruction not to panic and they’d just gone ahead and panicked any way.

The last time I went to the Savoy was to watch every single episode of the ‘Batman and Robin’ serial. At the beginning of every episode they showed the end of the preceding weeks episode to remind you what had happened. At the end they showed all the good bits of the next weeks episode to make you come again. Watched over many weeks, it wasn’t too bad, but end to end it was a brainwashing nightmare. I watched the lot; I had, after all said and done, paid to get in.

A film inspired the first joke I ever made up. It was ‘I was Monty’s double.’ I first saw it in April 1959. The joke went like this, I would say,
“Have you seen ‘Monty’s double.”
They say they had or hadn’t, then I’d say,
“I was Monty’s treble.” (A treble is a soprano). I would then sing in a high-pitched voice, “Oh yes I was.”
It didn’t get any laughs but I liked it. There’s a difference between, smart arse and funny.

I should have learned my lesson about music jokes, but I didn’t. Whilst doing a television series called ‘Patently Obvious’ I was standing with Peter Cook outside the studio. The producer, Colin, asked Peter if he would go in first and warm up the audience. Peter said he didn’t want to do it. To save embarrassment I jumped in and said, “I know a good joke I’ll go in.”
“No, no, said Colin I’d like Peter to do it.”
Peter said, “No I think Wilf should do it.”
I said, “I know, I'll tell you both the joke now and see what you think of it.”
Peter said “No, no”, you tell the joke in there and I’ll laugh.”
This agreed, we all went into the studio and sat down on the set. Colin introduced us all to the audience and I proceeded to tell my joke. It went like this.

“Did you hear about the French horn player who couldn’t kiss a girl without putting his hand up her skirt?”
I paused, waiting for the laughter .... Silence, nothing, not a titter.

I turned to Peter and said,“You said you’d laugh.”

He replied, “I didn’t get it.” A faint titter went round the room. Perhaps it is the way I told it.

Wilf's new book 'My Best Cellar' (his autobiography up to the age of eleven) can now be ordered online. £ 9.99   download book sample here

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