Sternfield Cinema

 

Did you know there was once a cinema in the coal yard not far from Sternfield House?

Someone had the resources and the initiative to use the hut, pictured above, as a projection room and auditorium, seating 15, showing films twice a week. Inside, the walls were covered with posters of film stars. Below the screen was a very small Wurlitzer organ which could be moved up and down, complete with tiny model organist. Music was supplied by gramophone records from the projection room. This was in the 1930s and/or the 1940s - years when cinema-going was reaching its peak.

Thanks to Jonathan Fox for telling the History Group about this and lending the photographs, which you can also see on the village website. If you can add any information to this fascinating bit of Sternfield history, please ring the History Group on 602563.

 

The cinema was run in a shed behind Glebe Farm, where lived the Scrimgeour family. Mr and Mrs Scrimgeour had two sons and one daughter, the cinema being run by the sons, Dan and John. This was in the 1930s, when the boys were teenagers, long before television or the internet.

There was seating for up to 10 people and shows were once a week in the school holidays. The films were of life as lived by the Scrimgeours, using a tennis court, a croquet lawn, a gypsy caravan, plus dogs and chickens. Play-acting came into it too.

1939 saw Dan and John off to war and daughter Jane joining the Wrens. She married Adrian Hawksley and they had three sons. While living in Glebe Farm with their grandparents, they ran a Village News Sheet. Their father printed it for them in his London office. The boys then distributed it amongst family and friends.

These are the bare bones an idyllic lifestyle, too short and never to be replicated.

Thanks to Manette Baillie for sharing these memories