The Odeon cinema, formerly known as the New Vic, is to close its doors this summer. Mike Priestley looks back on its glory days.

'THE END of an era.' That's a well-worn clich. But the forthcoming closure of the Odeon cinema in the heart of Bradford is the end of several eras.

That distinctive building at the junction of Thornton Road and Princes Way has touched successive Bradford generations in different ways. For a start, there are its various names.

To older generations it was the New Victoria, or "New Vic".

It was described when it opened in 1930 as "The Wonder Cinema of the North", and was one of the largest places of entertainment in the country, seating 3,310 people - a capacity exceeded only by the giant Trocadero at the Elephant and Castle in London and Green's Playhouse in Glasgow.

And what's more, its architect was a Bradford man, Alderman Walter Illingworth. It was a cinema and theatre combined, with a massive stage area 70ft wide by 45ft deep. For films, the expanding screen could be raised at the touch of a lever, with the loud speakers being moved into the wings when the stage acts took over.

Not only were there the films and the stage shows, but there were personal appearances by some of the great film stars of the day: people like Margaret Lockwood, Gracie Fields, and Bradford's own Pat Paterson, who later went to Hollywood and married French screen idol Charles Boyer.

And on top of all this magic, there was a magnificent ballroom where orchestras played and dinner-jacketed guests danced.

To the Bradford generation now in middle age, the building became known as The Gaumont - its name from the start of the 1950s. It still showed films. There was still the ballroom. But there was an increasing emphasis on stage shows with visits from touring singing stars and many of the pop-music packages.

It was from the Gaumont stage that Billy Daniels, Frankie Laine and Buddy Holly entertained packed

houses and Gene Vincent limped during the second house of his show there with Eddie Cochran in 1960, having taken offence at something yelled out by a member of the audience.

And it was that cavernous space that shrilled to the screams of thousands of teenage girls four years afterwards when John, Paul George and Ringo brought Beatlemania to Bradford, followed shortly by the Rolling Stones.

But it wasn't all pop hysteria. There were ice spectaculars too, and visits from the Royal Festival Ballet which drew huge audiences.

All that changed in 1969. Bradford's original Odeon cinema, located in Manchester Road, was demolished and shows were relocated to The New Vic/Gaumont, which was divided up to become the Odeon Twin Cinemas.

The stalls area was turned into the Top Rank Bingo which was transferred from the Majestic (itself formerly the Morley Street Cinema).

Several years later a third screen was added, in the former Gaumont ballroom (long since lost to Bradford's dancers) and licensed bars were added.

The Top Rank Bingo called "House" for the last time in the summer of 1997, leaving the cinema as the sole surviving representative of the various branches of the entertainment industry which had once flourished under the dome of the New Vic's roof.

And now that, too, is soon to go, leaving a great many memories behind for generation after generation of Bradford people.

Sea of Heartbreak as the Gaumont closed

Derek Lister had a long association with the Gaumont. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he entertained there as disc-jockey Dal Stevens, half of the duo of Dal and Dadio - an era he has chronicled well in his book Bradford's Rock 'n' Roll.

But before that, as a little lad back in 1945, he regularly found himself sitting in the audience as a member of the Gaumont Saturday Morning Club.

"It consisted of a singalong - the one with the bouncing ball moving over the words on screen," he recalls.

"This was accompanied by the giant Wurlitzer organ which had previously arisen from the depths of the cinema. After the songs, Uncle Phil Ridler, the manager, would find his way down from the top of the stalls to a microphone on stage.

"All the way down he would be dodging the many missiles that were aimed at him from all corners, accompanied by a loud booing and stamping of feet. Arriving at the microphone, he would give us a little message, though no-one could hear it. Then we had the National Anthem, followed by a cartoon, serial, and picture."

Fourteen years later Derek found himself appearing on the Gaumont's stage entertaining a new generation of youngsters with the Saturday-morning Teenage Show. He and Dadio were also to become the mainstays of many shows in the Gaumont Ballroom - shows which also featured Bert Bentley and His Orchestra and Benny Netherwood and the Wool City Jazzmen.

Then after Christmas in 1961 the ballroom closed. On that final Saturday night, Bert Bentley finished at 11.30pm giving Dal the last 15 minutes to play to the few who stayed on.

"So, in a way, I was the last person to perform at the Gaumont Ballroom", he recalls, wistfully. "The last number to ring out was Don Gibson's Sea of Heartbreak."

Organist Arnold added a musical touch

Drighlington-based organist Dr Arnold Loxam and his wife Audrey met at the New Vic in 1948. She was a new usherette and he played the famous Wurlitzer organ in the cinema on Sundays and often on weekdays - only she didn't know that and wouldn't let him in because he didn't have a ticket.

"You can keep me out if you like," he told her. "But if you do, you'll have to play the organ."

Arnold's association with the New Vic began on the opening night - September 22, 1930 - when he was a wide-eyed 14-year-old in the audience.

After the opening ceremony performed by the Lord Mayor, Alderman Angus H. Rhodes, the programme continued with a Mickey Mouse sound cartoon, a comedy film ("Scotch") and the Gaumont Sound News.

Then came Leslie James at the Wurlitzer Organ, Sydney Phasey and the London Symphony Orchestra and a special stage production of "Follies of 1890" (billed as "Follies of 1980! Because of a misprint).

Top of the bill was the big film - Rookery Nook.

It was 16 more years before Arnold Loxam began his long professional stint at the New Vic - in 1946, when he began playing and broadcasting from there regularly.

That association continued until 1962 when the BBC switched its broadcasts to the Leeds Odeon because the Bradford one was not being maintained adequately.

Arnold returned for a final broadcast from the then Gaumont in 1968 before the Wurlizter was removed. It now has pride of place in the North East Theatre Organ's chapel-turned-cinema at Howden-le-Wear, County Durham.

Arnold and Audrey Loxam have fond memories of the New Vic cum Gaumont days when a white-gloved doorman greeted arriving patrons, a lift took them from the Thornton Road entrance up to the balcony, and waitresses in black uniforms served teas in an upstairs cinema caf overlooking the Alhambra.

My fright night with cinema cat

Memories of the Gaumont (which is what it always will be to me) come flooding back.

Let's brush over the teenage snogging in the back row of the balcony (which seemed a very long way from the screen) and move on instead to a snowy teatime early in 1960 when, as a 16-year-old wearing incredibly uncool wellington boots, I thrilled to the sight of Eddie Cochran grinning and combing his quiff between songs on that vast stage.

That was the tour during which Eddie was to die in a car crash. He shared the bill with Gene Vincent, who I can still see sitting on the front of the stage to perform so sweetly the surprise song of his otherwise rocking act - Over the Rainbow.

I missed out on all the fun that went on in the Gaumont Ballroom, unfortunately, except for one night in 1961, not long before it closed, when Bradford schools sixth-formers held a joint dance there. A few of us made the mistake of visiting Yates's Wine Lodge first, arrived at the dance heavily tanked up with Australian sweet white wine (yerk!) and thoroughly disgraced ourselves.

When bingo arrived, I once interviewed the late Leslie Crowther who was making a live "Price is Right" appearance at the Top Rank Club in the building. As we talked in the dressing room he took off his trousers (to my surprise and dismay) only to put on some more, immaculately-pressed ones ready for going on stage.

And then there were the many film previews I used to attend at the Odeon. One of them was a horror movie in which a man was savaged by a demented cat. Not long after that scene, sitting alone in the cinema, I heard a sound behind me, turned round and nearly fainted.

Green eyes glared at me from the dark. The Odeon cinema cat was doing its rounds!

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