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Kingstanding Together

1950s · The Odeon

Saturday matinees and first dates

told by Veronica Marshall · Kingstanding resident

The OdeonGrowing Up

“Once the Odeon” — the frontage at Kingstanding Circle. Photograph: Martin Richard Phelan, 2014 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
“Once the Odeon” — the frontage at Kingstanding Circle. Photograph: Martin Richard Phelan, 2014 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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 cinema as a courting spot, waiting outside on chilly evenings.

Gathered by the Voices of Kingstanding project and the Birmingham History Forum, and shared with thanks.

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The Mecca bingo hall in the former Odeon, 2009. Photograph: Derek Bennett (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Martin Brookes · 1970s · The Odeon

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Remembers the building becoming a bingo hall around 1973 and running until 1999; his grandparents Annie and Edward Raven of Esher Road went regularly.

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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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