Day: September 15, 2013

Rod: The Autobiography

Source: Rod Stewart, Rod: The Autobiography (London: Arrow Books, 2012), p. 10

Text: Mary and Peggy, my sisters, would take me to watch speedway at Harringay, which was hugely popular then. And Mum and Dad sometimes treated me to a trip to the cinema – the Rex, in East Finchley, where the stalls took a big dip in the centre: the front rows were higher than the rows in the middle, and the back rows were higher still. Maybe it was war damage. One day, where I was eight, my mum said, ‘We’re going to see Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. This will be the funniest thing you’ve ever seen’ – a big build-up to give a film. But she was absolutely right. It was slapstick, but so subtle in the way it went about it. We sat there in the Rex’s battered stalls, and I had never laughed as hard as I laughed at Jacques Tati, haplessly creating havoc. Even today Ronnie Wood and I remain huge Tati fans.

Comments: Rod Stewart (born 1945) is a British rock singer. Ronnie Wood was guitarist with Stewart in the band The Faces before joining The Rolling Stones. Les Vacances de M. Hulot (France 1953) starred and was directed by Jacques Tati. It was a considerable international hit. The Rex was established in 1910 as the Picturedrome and continues today as the Phoenix. The slope in the floor was an original feature, caused by the lie of the land. Acknowledgments to Lisa Kerrigan for spotting this reference and tweeting about it.

Links: Phoenix Cinema, East Finchley

Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918

Source: Excerpt from interview with Maud Agnes Baines, ref. C707/13/1-2, Thompson, P. and Lummis, T., Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918, 1870-1973 [computer file]. 7th Edition. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], May 2009. SN: 2000, http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-2000-1

Text: Q: And cinemas – were there cinemas?

A: Oh we did sometimes go to cinemas if they – if the programme was suitable, you see, if father went to see what they were like first of all.

Q: And then they’d let you go if it was all right?

A: Yes, if it was suitable, yes, I remember enjoying that.

Q: Did your parents give you any pocket money?

A: We had very little, I forget what it was – something like thrupence a week.

Q: Was that regular – every week?

A; Oh yes – then it went up to sixpence or something.

Q: Do you remember what you spent it on?

A: Sweets. Toffee apples – we had toffee apples – I don’t know if you ever see then now. They used to be quite nice. They lasted such a long time too!

Comments: Maud Baines was born in Enfield, London in 1887. She was one of seven children of a men’s clothing designer who worked in Bond Street. She was interviewed on 28 July 1972, one of 444 people interviewed by Paul Thompson and his team as part of a study of the Edwardian era which resulted in Thompson’s book The Edwardians: The Remaking of British Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975).