Our cinema crimes that Flash through my mind

FORGET Netflix. The Saturday morning kids’ flicks are back.

This time you don’t have to queue in the hissing rain with a lot of urchins and shell out your pocket money for a ticket.

What was it? A shilling? Worth it for hours of action-packed adventure. Now you just turn on Talking Pictures TV for a revival of this 50s and 60s carnival.

Three hours of nostalgia started with Popeye the Sailor Man (he lives in a caravan). Then Zorro (the Masked

Avenger), Flash Gordon (conquers the universe) and Superman.

It’s exciting stuff, with cowboys shooting wildly and falling off horses (how do they do it?). I remember boys bouncing in their seats and lashing their sides with imaginary horsewhips. The manager pleads “stop banging your seats and running in the aisle” and asks anyone with a birthday to go on stage in the interval.

And this Saturday, we had Cup Fever, a football drama with cameo performances by Matt Busby, Nobby Stiles, Bobby Charlton and George Best. Hero worship!

We had a scam going at the Empire cinema in Normanton, getting in for free when the lights were dimmed.

One of us paid for a ticket and opened the emergency fire exit. Lads waiting out back could then slip in one at a time, appearing like wraiths from behind the curtain to sit in the nearest seat.

The usherette didn’t notice – too keen watching the film, maybe.

But some little swine gave us away, and the door was watched. Two got caught and marched off the premises, and that was the end of our criminal enterprise.

Properly scripted and acted, it would have made a good little short.