Where there is a gap in the market, someone will fill it and entrepreneurs soon came to identify a mass market of exuberant but under-utilised young people, at weekends, whose parents would pay almost anything to have them taken off their hands for a few hours. 

In this way was the Saturday morning matinee at the local cinema born!

Film – certainly of the type considered suitable for teens’ and pre-teens’ consumption – was in its infancy. The fare dished up was of the most ludicrous and infantile quality: the movies were cheaply made, badly acted and nonsensical and most intriguing of all, preceded by a string of adverts and a ‘B’ movie (Ronald Reagan was among the ‘stars’!)) certain to ensure our attention was diverted elsewhere before the main fare came on stream.

Still, Newry’s young folk were hardly critics worthy of the consideration of filmmakers!   

As soon as we got bored, we set about exploring in the dark - pestering others, seeking friends, making noise etc.

(A loud exclamation of “Oh, F**k! This place is WALKING!” from one patron recently bitten by one of the home-grown colonies of fleas: another dissatisfied customer would offer his opinion of the fare dished up by the ‘lady with the tray’; “Yer crips are wrattan!” he would roar: maybe he had just bitten into the little blue twist of salt).  

Yet so long as there was plenty of shooting, redskins and varmints, monsters and ogres and knife-edged drama, we were easily entertained. 

Best of all if some poor sucker was stumbling around blindly with a tomahawk sunk deep into his skull.

On the other hand, when the tension on screen fell below a certain level, the cinema authorities – and especially “Torchy”, the pour soul whose job it was to control two thousand restless and disgruntled youngsters – had an unenviable task. 

As soon as the first advert appeared on screen, twenty or so boys would leave their seats and go wandering the cinema in search of greater excitement.

‘Hey, you!

Yes, YOU!”

Torchy would exclaim, aiming his beam directly into your eyes.

“And where do you think YOU are going?”

“To the toilet, Sir”.

Being addressed as “Sir”  totally disarmed him. He wasn’t used to being spoken to with respect.

“Oh, all right then! No running, mind!”

Suddenly everyone was addressing him as “Sir” and claiming to be toilet-bound.

The poor man got more and more frustrated and excited.

“Hey! You! Yes, YOU! Young Smith!”

He would usually guess wrongly.

“I know your father! Don’t think I won’t tell him!”

This was great! Some other poor fool would take the rap! ‘Young Smith’ would duck out of his beam and race around the aisles.

Then some child would ball up a piece of paper and throw it across the rows. As it traversed the beams of white light projecting from the rear onto the screen in front (the films were all black-and-white then) it would flare up in the sudden brightness - like a lit match. 

If Torchy was new to the job and mistook this projectile for a real lighted match, then we were in second heaven.   Suddenly there was a rain of ‘lighted’ missiles overhead.

“STOP that! STOP at once! 

Who the f**k is firing lit matches?” he would scream.

“Please, Mister”, one Smart Alec would intervene,

“That’s a rude word you said!”

The speaker’s face was quickly illuminated with the torch. The next minute a rough hand was dragging him from his seat to eject him.

“Right! You’re barred!”

This was the worst fate than could befall any of us. 

Barred?! And miss all this fun every week?  Never!

“Leave him alone!” the chant would go up. 

“You were using bad language!”

“Do you want barred too?” he enquired enigmatically, picking another victim at random.

But he was outnumbered and knew he was in the wrong. 

The victim was released.

We settled down for a few minutes in unspoken truce.

Some few of us even turned our attention to the simulated action on screen.

…. more later ….