h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*decides not to wake the old threads - too many sleeping researchers*

I went to the Saturday Matinees for a short while in about '65/66. In Glasgow. It was pretty unruly; flying popcorn etc (maltesers would have been such a waste). I don't remember any of the films. What I do remember are the competitions at the interval - fancy dress, best dressed doll, best drawing, that sort of thing.

You queued up to file across the screen to show your doll, or whatever, to the manager. Who arbitrarily picked the winners - usually the cutest (my little sister on one occasion) or cheekiest. Nothing to do with the actual competition. Why am I still cross about that?

Waz

Hey, I went to one of those in Glasgow! I've never been on safari or climbed a volcano, but I've been to a matinee in Glasgow! I don't think there was a contest though. I can't remember one, anyway. That must have been great fun!

Curiously, my most vivid memory of the occasion was having to jump off a moving bus (such things were possible in the good old days ) on the way to the cinema. My cousins leapt off the platform, assuming that I would follow suit. Being, as I was, from Nottingham, where bus passengers aren't as rugged as those in Glasgow (not then anyway), I stayed on the platform naively waiting for the bus to actually stop. When I realized it wasn't going to, I decided I'd better jump for it while my cousins were still in sight or become lost forever in Glasgow.

Ah, those were the days...

JTG

You went to a Saturday matinee in Glasgow too!? A volcano would be an anticlimax after that. I shouldn't bother .

More coincidence - I went with my cousins as well. Nearly the whole extended family lived in Glasgow at the time. It was great having cousins to go around with.

Leaping off buses sounds about right. Kids got much more exercise back then. The walls we climbed, railings we scaled, back yards we fled, miles of lanes we scoured in the search for returnable bottles to exchange for sweets.

Those were indeed the days .
Waz

Indeed, they were. Really, it's a wonder we survived to see these pale days.

JTG