4.9.69 (midnight)
 |
| Billy Graham preaching outside the Compton in the early 60s |
Dear Mum, I’d better write now, because I haven’t really the
time during the day at the moment. I’m trying to organise myself fairly
thoroughly, and so far things are going quite smoothly. I’m just home from
work, of course; six hours of selling tickets to men who obviously haven’t much
else to do with their time. This club as I think I told you shows pretty grotty
films: what they call X films here (which is why the cinema is licensed as a
club, and must function according to police regulations) and which they
wouldn’t bother showing at home. [In NZ,
I assume I meant.] Quite why men want to come and see them I don’t know ˗
for the same reasons that striptease clubs make a nice profit I guess. [As far as I knew at this time,
pornography, in NZ, was barely visible,
though it presumably existed in some form.] Old Compton St, where I work (it’s just off Wardour St, which is
very famous as the English film industry’s street, as you no doubt know) has
two or three strip clubs in it ˗ one practically opposite the cinema, and a
variety of restaurants of greatly differing quality, a Cinerama theatre,
several clothes stores ˗ the ones who can’t make Carnaby St, which is also not
far from there ˗ and the usual number of pubs. (The Soho average is slightly
higher than elsewhere in London, about three a street I should think!)
The Compton [Cinema]is nearly all underground; I’m in the only bit that isn’t, and I shouldn’t
think it holds more than 200, if that. The people who come have to join first,
at 15/- a head! ˗ then they pay 12/6 on top of that. No wonder they make money
there. The film runs continuously from ten in the morning till (this week
anyway) 11.47 at night. There are shorts, but the point is that the place never
closes once it’s open. Only men can become members (!) but since they can take
a ‘guest’ in, some of them take their wives or girlfriends in. God alone knows
what they think of it! We had one man
last night who wanted to take both his wife and his dog in. Tonight I had a
Czech who spoke no English at all, and as little German as I do, so though he
wasn’t keen on the idea, I finally let him in for £1-7-6 (he wanted to go in
for 12/6, like some of the English people who can read the signs do), but it was only after innumerable
gesticulations on my part that we got anywhere.
 |
| Compton Cinema in the late 60s |
Lots of the men come in without their cards, and at present
the filing system is in a complete state of chaos, so that it’s well nigh
impossible to find anything. There is an old set of names with thin strips of
cardboard stuck in metal plates that are detachable from their main stand and
which should be on the wall but isn’t. The strips fall out whenever you try to
find anything, and anyway they aren’t in order except that they’re under A or B
or such. There’s a new card filing system which is in perfect order, but lots
of the cards haven’t yet been filed, and there’s a list being typed (again not
strictly alphabetically) into a book. This will soon be stopped, I think. Or at
worst you can look in the daily records book where each name is entered against
its membership number. This may only take a good half-hour, depending on
whether the guy can remember when he came in before or not!
What amuses me about the place is that nobody, as far as I can
make out, and I think I’ve met most of the staff at one time or another who work
there, ever watches the films that are shown! Even the management. Mr Neilson,
who as I said is not much than older than me, is going on holiday tomorrow, and
Mike ? is taking over. He’s from Jersey, and is filling in time till he can get
the right sort of union card to be able to work in the floor management side of
TV. He’s done it before, but apparently can’t do it just now. Anyway, I may yet
get another job out of it all. There’s a new cinema being opened in Tottenham
Court Rd, on the same sort of system, so I may be lucky enough to get the same
sort of job. It would suit me fine, because I’m starting to make some headway
with what I’m doing in the daytime.
Remember how my foot was damaged? Well, it’s now getting to
the repaired stage, and somewhere along the line, I’ve now been bitten (I
think) on the other foot, and it all swelled up! I’ve put the Englishman’s favourite
antiseptic on it (TCP)
and I haven’t yet looked at it since I’ve been home.
The weather today suddenly went mad and shot back up to the
70s, just as we were all putting our winter wooly vests back on. Crazy. Monday
was August Bank Holiday, though as usual it fell in September (!), and Hazel
and Ian (who is an old friend of Hazel’s) and I went out in Ian’s car for the
day. We didn’t go far, only to Epping Forest, where we walked (and picnicked,
rather unsatisfactorily on biscuits and apples), and then when we finally found
the car again, we went to Hampstead Heath, and had a look at the fair. Actually
there were three fairs, but all of them were pretty dull. We went to see Some Like It Hot
in Hampstead, at 4.00, [this would have
been the second time I’d seen it] and then when we found all the
restaurants we wanted to go to were closed we went to a singularly ‘caff’ type
place in Soho, and then went to a pub next door to Hazel’s present abode (she’s
rented out her own flat, as she leaves London for some time soon), then went to
Hazel’s present abode and listened to The Rite of Spring!
Very curious day, but also very relaxing. Ian and I got to know each other considerably
better too.
[Handwritten on the
back] Next day. Other foot this morning seems to be calming down somewhat,
and is back to its normal size. Call me YS029399C!! from now on. That’s the National Insurance. I
wrote to the Post Office about Postmen’s work, and you should see the rigamarole
of forms they sent back to fill in ! I was only asking ˗ you’d think they
thought I was already joining!
P.S. And I’d have to take a test!! [I’d worked as a
Postman in Dunedin, for a couple of months.]
