The archive

3 published memories in Growing Up.

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The Odeon at Kingstanding Circle. Photograph: Andy Mabbett, July 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Terry Jay · 1960s · The Odeon

A lifetime in one building

Went as a child with his sisters, buying sweets from Mores sweet shop beforehand — and later worked in the very same building as a bingo caller in 1966.

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“Once the Odeon” — the frontage at Kingstanding Circle. Photograph: Martin Richard Phelan, 2014 (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Veronica Marshall · 1950s · The Odeon

Saturday matinees and first dates

A regular at the Saturday matinee — Roy Rogers and Trigger, Gene Autry — who once lost her teddy bear when a friend borrowed it during a screening. Years later she used the cine…

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The former Odeon on Kings Road, where Alan queued for the Saturday matinee. Photograph: Tony Hisgett, 2010 (CC BY 2.0)

Alan Hitchman · 1950s · The Odeon

A grand place to a young boy

Walked to the matinee from about ten years old, with his younger sister — cowboy films, cartoons, Flash Gordon serials. Remembers “a big foyer” and an organ that “popped up some…

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