Now showing in my garden ... film buff builds his own cinema with 34 seats
IF Anderson Jones feels like a visit to the cinema, he doesn’t have to go far – just into his back garden.
The bus driver has spent £70,000 and more than four years building his own picture house complete with big red curtains and plush seats.
It is modelled on an ABC cinema. That chain closed in 2000 after 73 years, seen off by stiff competition from multiplexes.
Mr Jones, 38, spent years scouring the country for old parts of ABC cinemas before painstakingly restoring them for his own 34-seat venue. When his local ABC in Hanley, Stoke, was demolished in 2001 he paid £600 for the ticket machine, seats, exit signs and the readograph – the long white sign on which the films are listed.
Boxes of red letters came from that ABC and one in Lancaster, while the clock is from the former Star cinema in Liverpool. And he paid £1,500 for the projector which he bought from a fellow film fan who had acquired it from the Odeon in Birmingham.
The screen itself is 17ft by 7ft, there are toilets and a foyer with a stand offering popcorn and sweets. The brick building itself, adorned with the ABC logo, takes up half of the garden of his semi-detached house. Mr Jones acquired some authentic ABC carpet but it wasn’t enough, so a company made an exact copy. He said that alone cost £3,000, but that it was ‘well worth it’.
He added: ‘I used to say to friends, “I’m going to build a cinema in my garden”. They didn’t believe me.
‘I used to be a kitchen fitter so I can do plastering and brick laying and built the cinema myself. All my life savings have gone into it.’
Fortunately, he said, his wife Jayne, 47, and children Hannon, 21, and 16year-old Ethan also love the cinema.
The venue will be open only to family, friends and members of the Cinema Theatre Association, who will not be charged. Mr Jones said: ‘This can’t be a business. I will ask for donations for charity. I want to be known as the guy who built a cinema and kept it going.’
His wife Jayne, who will play an usherette in an original ABC uniform, said: ‘I’m very proud of him. He’s done a fantastic job.’