Parkway Cinema: Incredible history of Barnsley's only independent cinema

Sophie Mei Lan Malin reports from , Eldon Street in Barnsley.

Transcript

00:00In the original projection room we started with just like this, yeah?

00:04Yeah.

00:04So back in the day, this spool box can only take one reel of film which is roughly 20 minutes.

00:12So every 20 minutes they would change from that one to that one and then change back again and

00:18back again and back again all the way through the film. We can still project it like that

00:23if we want to, we don't but we can. Nowadays the film will all be doing together on one

00:30horizontal platter so instead of changing over there'll be one platter with all seven

00:34reels joined together we'll just run it as one. My first job from school was working here as a

00:39trainee projectionist. It was a stepping stone, I didn't stay, I was here for three years and gone,

00:44went back to full-time education. I went out of the trade for three weeks and then I ended up

00:51working at Penistone Paramount just up the road as a relief projectionist while I was doing my

00:55study. Never left the trade since. So I've always been in cinema. When this place closed in 2005,

01:02I was at a technical for Pitch House Cinemas across the UK, still living in Barnsley,

01:07could not believe that Odium were going to close this. Tried to keep it open,

01:11tried to talk to the people here, there wasn't a lot of interest, that was it, it was a done deal.

01:15I did find out who bought it and I just pestered the hell out of him until he eventually gave in

01:20and said okay. Well, who knows, we don't know what the future will be. It could go one of two

01:29ways really. I was talking to another independent cinema owner yesterday who was about to close

01:35because he can't carry on any longer running into loss. We're running into loss now,

01:39as are pretty much everything in the country.