South Molton’s
cinema, The Savoy, stopped showing films in the 1970s, and after a long period
of dereliction was finally totally demolished some twenty years ago. The
site lay bare for ten years before houses were built on it.
The Savoy
Just here it was
I’m sure a cinema
palace of dreams
I cannot see now
a name from romance
where people like us
were transported elsewhere
exotic exciting
real fears tears and laughs
white-toothed good-lookers
smooth shaven and smart
inaccessible beauties
to capture your heart
jerky cartoons
news from abroad
with fanfares and
announcements from
voices assured
local advertisements
both shaky and still
hands held in the dark
giggling children
nights to look forward
to Saturday mornings
meet on the steps
holding your money
queuing to see something
we won’t see again
I know it was here
though there’s nothing
to show where
the frames told the future
what was coming tonight
and tomorrow next week
did we wake up to find
it was all of it gone
disappeared like a promise
this palace of dreams?
Progressing into a new year brings thoughts about the future, and the past – what lies ahead, and what's gone forever.
Here's a good example of something that was once important which is now completely lost.
I don't mean to get sentimental. This small-town cinema was little more than an asbestos roofed barn, behind its attempt at an imposing facade. It had stopped showing films before my time. And no doubt it had got pretty run-down before then.
Nonetheless, once upon a time it must have played a major role here with its ability to transport local people – quite a few hadn't travelled farther than Barnstaple – to some pretty exotic places, before the age of television (which must have been one of the main reasons for its disappearance).
Films are as powerful now as ever, and if anything even more widely enjoyed; cinemas have reinvented themselves. Ours is predominantly a visual culture. So we see (see!) newspapers turning into images on a screen (even if it's a tiny individual one), games taking the same route and all of us, adults and children alike, learning how to do things – as well as finding our entertainment – by watching what are in effect little films on our own screens.
Maybe this is a, if not the, future for poetry too. Watching and hearing it makes it immediate and live, true to its origins. So this new year will see me for one working out how my own poems may be presented in this medium – perhaps even offering this poem as a little film.
Watch this space!
So, looking back, looking forward, the South Molton Savoy (love the alliteration!) may have vanished – that's what happens to palaces of dreams – but welcome to videos, now so cheap, easy and accessible.
All of which adds up to some pretty impressive advantages over the printed word, hard copy and books.
But I still think it's a shame that our very own Palace crumbled, then vanished...
Reminded me of trips to the old Carlton Cinema in Okehampton. One never felt that warm in there. Not helped by the musty smelling furniture and tatty red curtains. Then the VHS player arrived and we had cinema nights at home.
ReplyDeleteIt closed in the 1970's, became a Bingo hall, but then reopened as a cinema in 1979 and stayed open till at least 1981. I was trained as a projectionist there!
ReplyDelete