Cinema managers often called themselves 'Uncle' for the hordes of kids who packed in to the Saturday matinees for their dose of cartoons, serials and adventure feature films.

But Charlie Mozley was more of a Dutch uncle - as many Bradford charities discovered.

For 38 years he was manager at the Hippodrome Cinema in Barkerend Road - later the Roxy. When he died in 1957 at the age of 87, his friends could look back on a half-century of work for those in need.

He came to mind after last week's piece about cinema matinees.

His party piece was to dress up as Charlie Chaplin - to whom he bore more than a passing resemblance - and teeter around on a walking cane at galas, fairs and the annual Whit Walk, collecting contributions, usually for the Bradford Hospital and Convalescent Fund.

"He will comb the crowds in spirited style and with a tireless smile which has more power over the public purse than an afternoon of platform eloquence," said the T&A in 1931.

"The jingle of money in his capacious pockets will grow wealthier for the Bradford poor with the day, for Charlie Mozley would have been the world's champion rate collector, if he had not become a pillar of the Bradford Hospital and Convalescent Fund.

"You will see him on Monday at the Whit Walk. His charm is baffling. But it is not through a task charged by a dutiful mind. His heart is to blame."

George Benjamin Mozley was a veteran of the film industry, even in the 1930s. He was among the first members of the Cinema Veterans 1903 organisation, made up of proprietors and managers who had been in the business since the start of the century.

Apart from his Chaplin impersonation, he also brought to life two cartoon characters - the T&A's 'Arry and 'Erb, better known as the Wapping Sleuths. He sponsored two local lads to dress up as the characters, and they too raised more than a few bob at galas and other functions.

The Chaplin figure, though, was drawn from life - Charlie Mozley and Charlie Chaplin had worked and toured together as part of Fred Karno's famous troupe The Mumming Birds.

Not a bad grounding in showbusiness, that...

Birthday memories of a great Irish tenor

Whoops - we got it a bit wrong about Josef Locke last week. The Irish tenor certainly did appear in Bradford at least a couple of times, probably in 1949 and in August 1955.

Surprisingly the occasions were not recorded by the T&A library staff of that time; nor do they appear in my late colleague Peter Holdsworth's admirable book Domes of Delight.

Happy to put the record straight.

Mrs Betty Hall remembers the 1955 appearance because her husband was working backstage at the Alhambra, and she can put an exact date on it because on the night in question, August 6, she gave birth to a son.

Locke asked her husband to get some music from his dressing room. "My husband told him, in no uncertain terms, to go and get it himself because he was going home," says Mrs Hall.

Locke understood the situation and later asked after mother and child.

Peter Emmott remembers a late 1940s appearance. It was certainly before 1950, because that was the year he married and definitely before 1951 because by then Mr Emmott was a police officer and, if Locke had been wanted by the taxman at that time, he would have had no hesitation in nicking him there and then!

There was, incidentally, an entertainer called Mr X who appeared, among other places, at the Low Moor Working Men's Club. He disguised his identity, and was thought by many to be the Irish singer. This is now known not to be the case.

Thanks to everybody who wrote with their memories of Josef Locke - and sorry for putting Ireland off the east coast of England, not the west!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.