Saturday mornings at the Ninian

Before Saturday morning TV and when I was a kid many moons ago I was more likely to be found queuing outside the Ninian cinema for Saturday morning club with several hundred screaming children waiting for the doors to open. I can’t remember how much it cost but it was cheap and popular.

We (my friends and I) would have our bus fares but 9 times out of ten, we would walk saving our money for sweets in the cinema and a drink. The need to get in and find seating for your little gang was paramount and some line jumping could be involved until you hit normally someone older then you or a bigger gang than yours.

Inside once you grabbed a packet of crisps and a drink into the theatre to the noise of kids nattering away without a sign of a parent in sight. It would be social suicide to turn up with Mummy and Daddy. If you did feel the need to take a parent, they did tend to frequent the small balcony area.

Lights out and you could hear a pin drop and the screen flickers into life with a cartoon are some slap stick comedy from the silent movies era. Up next an on-going serial with the Lone Ranger, Rin Tin Tin or Flash Gordon which would leave us tantalising wanting more as our heroes are about to come to a nasty end meaning you would need to be back next week to see that the end especially with Flash Gordon.

Flash Gordon was my favourite in adventure like ‘Flash Gordons Trip to Mars’, with Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe as Gordon. He would battle the devious Ming the Merciless the ruthless tyrant who ruled the planet Mongo. Besides trying to get into Dale Arden’s knickers. Ming wanted to destroy Earth trying a Death Ray and Purple Death but Dr. Zarkov was on hand to save the day with Flash.

The big film would be something from the Children's Film Foundation, which made films for children. Movies like The Boy Who Turned Yellow and Robin Hood Junior were the staple diet and sometimes-other child suitable films. Thinking about what was on offer it was more or less boys own kind of stuff not really geared towards girls.

Once it was time to head for home the choice of a bus home or walking. We would mostly choose to walk home and spend our bus fare on a nice bag of chips. By the mid-1970s, the TV channel had woken up to the potential of Saturday morning TV for kids meaning the end of the Saturday morning cinema clubs.