Bellshill

Demolished

Main Street

George

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Photograph courtesy of Bruce Peter.

Associated GP Cinemas

Associated G.P. Cinemas

1998, Bruce Peter

This article was first published in Picture House magazine in the Summer of 1998.

This is the story of one of Scotland's most important independent cinema circuits and of its owner, George Palmer.

The

soaring, neon-lit, tiled frontage of the

George Cinema was a sight to

behold among the dour sooty terraces of Bellshill’s Main Street. I

remember the George only during its final years in the early 1980s.

Although just a wee boy, I was deeply impressed by its cavernous dark

pink interior with dim light glowing from behind coves in the ceiling

and intricate grilles on either side of the vast screen.

Only the

balcony was then in use and, even at a Christmas showing of Snow-White,

I never saw more than a couple of dozen customers. By then the George

was being run on a day-to-day basis by a bingo outfit who were only

waiting for a license. It was never granted and the George closed

abruptly in May 1982 for demolition. Years later I became a student at

Glasgow School of Art and began to take an interest in Scotland’s fast

disappearing cinema buildings. Looking back, it was perhaps my few

visits to the George that started this fascination.

The George was the brainchild of George Palmer, one of Scotland’s

cinema kings. Although his firm, Associated G. P. (which surprisingly

stood for General Provincial) Cinemas was wound up only in 1983, all

trace of Palmer’s business has vanished and his story at first

proved elusive. I began by telephoning Janet McBain at the Scottish

Film Council. I once offered to interview his widow, but she

totally refused - I’m afraid I can’t help you much this

time, Bruce.’ Glasgow film enthusiast Ian Cunningham, who also

helped with my Glasgow cinema book, actually met my subject in person.

I went often to the George in Barrhead. They had better than

average pictures in there and, even in the seventies, never showed

anything unsuitable for family audiences. I used to chat to the manager

in the foyer and often I’d see a wee man in the corner, counting

the audiences going in and chain-smoking. I asked who he was and was

told in hushed tones that it was Mr Palmer the owner. I chatted

with him about the films and his cinemas. He was, of course, very

knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the business with hands

on’ experience of all aspects of running cinemas. All that hard

work must have taken its toll as by then he had baggy eyes and

didn’t look at all well ’

George Palmer was born in 1903 in Govan, a burgh of Glasgow famed for

its engineering and shipyards. He went to Govan High School and later

to Glasgow Technical College, before joining Fairfields Shipyard as an

electrical engineer.

He lived in a cinema-mad neighbourhood where as

many as fifteen different picture houses competed for business. In 1922

Palmer left his job at Fairfields to manage a local picture house

(possibly the Govan Cinema in Maxwell’s ABC circuit). His

enthusiastic promotion of films brought him to the attention of the CEA

Scottish Branch with an award for showmanship.

After a year, he was

appointed general manager of the prestigious first run La Scala in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, an amazing achievement for a mere twenty year old.

La Scala

Alhambra

In 1925, he moved with his wife and young daughter, Madge, to Bellshill, becoming manager of the Alhambra

on the town’s Main Street. Notwithstanding its idyllic name,

Bellshill was in fact a grim mining village with a population of 20,000

in its environs at the heart of the Lanarkshire coal field. Opened in

1923 by a local syndicate including Mr Antonio Verrecchia, who ran the

neighbouring ice cream parlour, the Alhambra had been struggling.

Palmer set about winning audiences back from the rival Picture House by

booking the best available films (during his brief spell at La Scala,

he had made many useful acquaintances in the CEA and could often get

new releases before the opposition). In March 1929, the Alhambra became

the first cinema in Lanarkshire to fit talkie equipment (supplied by

Western Electric) and Jolson’s The Jazz Singer opened there

immediately after its record-breaking Glasgow run at the Coliseum . After seven years as manager, Palmer became managing director of the Alhambra in March 1932.

In May 1937, Palmer acquired the Regal in Mossend, a linear mining

village a couple of miles to the east of Bellshill . This was a

conversion from the old Pavilion Theatre of Varieties, dating from

Although the area was suffering from the effects of the

depression, Palmer spent £4000 on refurbishment, including a new

neon name sign on the frontage. At the opening, he was presented with a

leather dressing case by Bill McGee, the Regal’s manager, who was

to become one of Palmer’s most loyal employees as he built up his

circuit during the following years. In 1938, the Alhambra was rebuilt

and opened on 16 September. The Bellshill Speaker described it as

Lanarkshire’s New Wonder Cinema’ and explained how

Mr Palmer fully intends to bring London West End discipline into

the Alhambra, which indicates that noise and drunkenness will not be

tolerated. A rule that will be strictly enforced is that children in

arms will not be admitted ’ The exterior was fitted with a

full length canopy and a fin-shaped name sign, both with red and green

neon. It made the Alhambra a landmark which could be seen from as far

away as the platform of Mossend Station. The foyer had terrazzo floors,

marble dados and an island pay box below a domed ceiling. The screen

had two sets of curtains in crimson velvet over silver and gold silk

screen tabs with French pleating. On the technical side, there was a

new installation of Western Electric Mirrophoric sound apparatus

(another first for the area).

Odeon Leicester Square

In 1938, George Palmer went on a CEA trip to London to view the new Odeon Leicester Square .

The Lanarkshire upstart must have been impressed, for on his return, he

bought a large vacant site next to Bellshill Academy to construct what

he described to the Speaker as Lanarkshire’s answer to the

London Odeon.’ The site was to have been developed as the State

cinema by another local showman, but Palmer’s ambitious project

did not get beyond the erection of steel frames when war was declared

and all construction work on cinemas was halted. It would be another 14

years before his flagship project would open, and in the meantime,

Associated G.P. Cinemas would expand all over the Central Belt of

Scotland.

In 1939, the Speaker commented on how Mr

Palmer’s enterprises are coining money the queues this

week at the Alhambra for The Adventures of Robin Hood must be the

longest yet seen ’

According to Archie McNeil, who worked as a doorman in Palmer’s

cinemas, his recipe for success was simple. In Lanarkshire,

cinemas were rarely short of audiences, and if they were doing badly,

it was their own fault. Many of these places were just flea pits, in

fact big circuits like Gaumont and Odeon were often the worst offenders

as cinemas in what their head offices must have considered remote

places like Coatbridge and Bellshill were the last ones to have money

spent on them. You never were in such filthy, draughty places as the

Bellshill Picture House or the Motherwell Pavilion, both old music

halls. George Palmer, on the other hand, was always coming round in his

silver Rolls Royce to keep an eye on standards. He insisted that the

cleaners polish inside all the ash trays with Brasso!’

In 1940, Palmer was looking for fresh screens to conquer, but buying

cinemas was a risky business then. He bought the Palace in Clydebank

only weeks before it took a direct hit from a land mine in the

Clydebank blitz. That hall had begun life as a variety theatre and was

an original member of Maxwell’s ABC chain. Fortunately the

audience had left for air raid shelters when the cinema was hit,

although it was a write-off. Its proud new owner was unlucky to buy the

only Scottish cinema damaged by enemy action.

Undaunted, in 1942, Palmer more than doubled the size of his operation

when he bought first the Pavilion cinema on the corner of Crofthead

Street and Spindlelowe Road in Uddingston, in the shadow of the

town’s main employer, the Tunnock’s bakery. The 850-seat

Pavilion was a small and little-known atmospheric’,

described as picturesque in the extreme and oriental in

appearance.’ His other acquisition was far away from home (Palmer

by then lived in Uddingston) in Portobello, a seaside resort on the

Forth estuary which had been absorbed into Edinburgh.

The Bungalow Electric Theatre

dated from some time before 1902, being described in licensing

documents simply as a hall with lavatories.’ It was a

roller skating venue in 1910-11 before Wilbur Harlan, an American

showman converted it to the Bungalow Electric Cinema. Portobello was

then a great mecca for Edinburgh holiday makers; it had

Scotland’s only seaside pier, several variety theatres and an

amusement park with Winter Gardens and a Bostock menagerie, known as

the Marine Gardens.

Bungalow / Victory

The Bungalow was a rudimentary cinema with wooden

forms in the front rows of a gas-lit single level auditorium with bare

roof trusses. As Portobello’s Marine Gardens had been occupied by

the Admiralty and there was a strong military presence, he re-named it

the Victory.

Palmer also bought the Central Picture House ,

an altogether more salubrious cinema in Portobello’s High Street.

It had started life in 1915 as the New Picture House and had been run

latterly by the same directors as the Bungalow. Palmer renamed it the

George on 12 November 1942. A.J. Mullay remembers it clearly:

Central

grew up with the Central and can claim to have been chucked out of it

many times into Hope Lane behind. During children’s matinees, the

management used the imaginative ploy of throwing out unruly juveniles

by the row. The manager would come down the aisle with two doormen and

order third row out, NOW!’ which must have been good for

business, as many of us promptly paid for re-entry .George

Palmer sometimes came in person to collect the takings. We knew of him

as his portrait hung in the foyer of both his cinemas and everything

from tickets to carpets had the G.P. symbol."

The Victory closed in May 1956 having shared programmes with the George

during its final years as an overflow’ venue. When Palmer

bought the luxurious County

in Bath Street in 1955, it took the circuit name and the High Street

George reverted to being known as the New Central until it closed on 2

December 1961 in favour of bingo. After years as a cabaret

nitespot’, it is now derelict [2006 update: Now flats] . The Victory is a furniture

store [2006 update: Now demolished] .

In May 1943, Palmer added the Picturedrome

in Edinburgh’s Easter Road to his expanding empire when the

original owner, Alex Black, died. The Picturedrome dated from September

1912 and seated 600 in a florid Edwardian-style auditorium in the back

court of a row of tenements.

The entrances to the front and rear

sections were cramped between shops, however it was reputedly a good

earner and was refurbished as the Eastway. Palmer increased the

Eastway’s capacity to 875 by extending the auditorium and it

continued until 26 August 1961.

Eastway

Its manager, Freddie Gardner,

supervised all Palmer’s cinemas in the Edinburgh area. The cinema

became a supermarket and fragments of the original interior are

reputedly still visible above what is now a branch of Iceland.

Norwood

In 1944, Palmer bought the Norwood

near Charing Cross in Glasgow’s city centre from the notorious

showman and cinema pioneer, A.E. Pickard. Pickard had converted it in

1936 from the Norwood ballroom. The structure consisted of an asbestos

roof, supported on either side by existing buildings. True to form, its

original promoter had devised an outlandish frontage topped with two

cantilevers of the Forth Railway Bridge, a clock suspended between them

and a big plywood replica of the Cunard liner Queen Mary sailing

underneath as a Bassett-Lowke model locomotive crossed the bridge!

Hard

though it is to imagine, the interior was even more curious with a

display case containing a Kilmarnock edition of Burns poetry marked as

A Gift for Whichever Leader Wins the War.’ The stadium

auditorium was clad in faceted mirrors of different colours with a

specially woven carpet glued to the ceiling - no wonder it was known as

Pickard’s Crystal Palace’. The reflections caused by

the mirrors must have made watching a film at the Norwood very

difficult! When the necessary building permits were obtained, Palmer

had the Norwood rebuilt. There was a Gala opening on 14 August 1950

when the cinema was opened by the Lord Provost of Glasgow as the

George. Palmer’s usual architect, Lennox Paterson from Hamilton,

had toned down the interior, but the bridge remained until ABC took

over in December 1955. The building is now a snooker club.

On 4 May 1945, Palmer opened another Victory Cinema ,

this time on Dumbarton Road in the Whiteinch area of Glasgow. As with

its Edinburgh namesake, this was yet another venerable hall, dating

from 1913. It had started life as the Avenue, with films interspersed

by music hall turns’, although the stage was only a few

planks wide. It was designed by Thomas Baird Jnr with a flamboyant

frontage in French Empire style with two steeply pitched pavilion

roofs, but this appeared to have been tacked onto the most rudimentary

hall behind.

Victory

Palmer bought the Victory from the showman James Graham

and after extensive refurbishment was carried out by Modernisation Ltd

(a firm which inexpensively did to cinemas exactly what its name

implied), it soldiered on until 1964. It then became a warehouse until

demolition in the 1980s.

Palmer’s various cinema interests were brought together when he

formed Associated G.P. Cinemas in 1946 with an office at 149 West

George Street in Glasgow. Its two directors were George Palmer and his

second wife, Janet, reputedly a formidable lady, who was the driving

force behind the firm’s continued expansion. That year he lost

his pioneering Regal in Mossend to an overnight fire (Scottish cinemas

burned down with unfailing regularity, perhaps because, especially in

industrial areas, their patrons have always shown a macho disdain for

the use of ash trays).

Rialto

A new addition was the Largs Picture House, a

little 700 seater in the popular Clyde Coast resort town. Largs was a

favourite holiday destination for the Palmers and the cinema, which

dated from 1913, became the George.

Later, that December, Palmer bought

the Rialto in Cathcart on Glasgow’s south side from ABC, which

was already well represented in the area. This too was modernised,

becoming the George on 23 December 1948.

By the late forties, Associated G.P. Cinemas had become a large

circuit, but although well maintained, the cinemas were a rickety

bunch, mostly dating from the era of silent films. This situation was

soon to change. In April 1946 Palmer bought the Ayrshire-based K.R.

Blair cinema Circuit in what was then the biggest post-war cinema deal

in Scotland.

The Blair chain included the Regal in Girvan , the Palace in Irvine, the Picture House in Beith, the Kyle in Irvine and the Embassy in Troon .

The latter two each seated over 1,500 and were among the most modern

cinemas in Scotland. The Embassy was built in 1937 to a James McKissack

design. McKissack was one of Scotland’s most prolific cinema

specialists and it had a cloud-shaped facade in cream and blue tiles

incorporating a display panel for the current attractions and shop

units on either side.

The auditorium behind was spacious with curving

grilles flanking the screen and decorative back-lit fountain motifs on

the splay walls with cove lighting above. The Kyle and the Regal were

also McKissack-designed thirties supers’ and all three

were soon re-named George.

Regal, Girvan

Radio Kilbirnie

In the autumn of 1946 negotiations began with the Bridgend Picture

House company to take over its four cinemas in Largs and Kilbirnie in

Ayrshire. These concluded with a take-over by George Palmer in 1948.

One of its directors was the Kilbirnie-based architect James Houston,

responsible for the design of the two most flamboyant cinemas in the

deal, the Radio

and the Viking. The Radio was built in 1937 and, as with the somewhat

better known Radio City Music Hall in New York City, took the mircale

of electronic communication as its theme. It had a low, curvaceous

white frontage with red and silver stripes, chrome eagle’s heads with

wings at each corner and a mighty fake radio beacon soaring above the

entrance with a flashing light and flashing purple neon zig-zags to

broadcast its presence to the neighbourhood. Bearing in mind that the

Radio stood at a cross roads in a staid little Ayrshire village of

sandstone terraces and villas, this design was more than a little

audacious! The foyer had a swirling terrazzo and mosaic floor which

continued the theme of radio waves and the proscenium in its stadium

auditorium was equally futuristic.

The Viking was also themed, this time taking its inspiration from the

Battle of Largs where the Scots trounced Viking invaders in 1263. It

opened on 31 October 1939, ironically the day before another battle

commenced as the Germans invaded Danzig. The Viking was a tour de

force; it stood in landscaped gardens on the waterfront where a replica

Viking long boat projected from the entrance. Patrons entered between

buttressed walls beneath battlements and a portcullis which advertised

the cinema’s programme and shut over the doors for security at

night. The whole confection was painted in red, white and blue and

there were murals showing scenes of the battle in the auditorium.

Houston’s two cinemas were not only highly original, but also

very convincingly designed. The other Largs cinema in the deal was the

Electric Picture Pavilion, dating from 1911 and located up a side

street next to the Gogo Water. Being tiny, badly appointed and remote

from the town centre, it was sold to become the Star Ballroom in 1952,

although miraculously it still exists. The last of the four was the

Kilbirnie Picture House of 1922 which became the George for a time

until it closed in 1959 and the Radio was given the circuit name.

Viking, Largs

In May 1948, Associated G.P. Cinemas took over the Crown in Crown

Street in the Gorbals - a densely packed area of slum tenement housing

in Glasgow’s inner city. This 1930-vintage cinema, designed by

Lennox and McMath, became yet another George and was one of the

circuit’s busiest cinemas during the 1950s as it took the Rank

release immediately after it had played in the city centre. It

soldiered on until 1970 when its patrons were moved elsewhere by the

city authorities to allow the much-needed comprehensive redevelopment

of Gorbals to begin.

On 24 November 1951 the George in Bellshill finally opened.

Palmer’s dream-child and circuit flagship had been fourteen years

in the making, but after much lobbying of the Atlee government by the

all-powerful National Union of Mineworkers Lanarkshire Branch, the

building permits were finally granted in 1948, although materials

shortages had delayed completion by several more years. For Palmer, it

was a triumph; the first brand new post war cinema anywhere in Britain

and one of such high quality as to compete favourably with most city

centre houses. The Ideal Kinema hailed it as Scotland’s

Contribution to Kinema Loveliness’ and a Triumph of Beauty

and Comfort’. The George had been designed by Lennox Paterson,

and although the basic planning was pre-war, the latest thinking was

employed in its execution. The exterior was a startling addition to the

grimy streets of Bellshill, being clad entirely in cream, biscuit and

black tiles with an internally-lit tower of glass block work at one

end. The frontage was outlined in pink, red and blue neon with sixteen

banks of white tubes under the canopy.

The interior was equally striking. The entrance doors, without frames,

formed a continuous expanse of armour plated glass to allow light to

flood out into the street. There was a green and cream terrazzo floor

with large GP’ logos in mosaic and three concealed lights

above. The circle foyer was panelled in walnut with an etched glass

mirror frieze depicting local industries and transport in typical

Festival of Britain’ style. The auditorium walls were

shaded in pink with intricate back-lit grilles, sprayed in silver, to

either side of the screen and long troughs of pink cove lighting. The

screen curtains were a memorable feature for there were three sets!

First, the lights dimmed from the rear to the front and the grilles

darkened. Then the vivid turquoise and green house tabs, with their

colourful tropical fish, opened to the sides. Below, there were crimson

velvet tabs with silver sequins. Once these slowly parted, a silver

silk reefer tab scrunched up to reveal a vast screen. Cinema owners

certainly knew about presentation in those days! The dark red carpet

had interlocking leaves with the GP’ motif and there

wasluxurious seating for 1,750. Hugh Quinn was assistant projectionist

at the George from its opening:

the days running up to the opening, Mr and Mrs Palmer arrived first

thing in the morning in their Rolls Royce, straight from home in

Uddingston, to supervise the preparations. Bill McGee, one of Mr

Palmer’s longest employees was manager, and as the days went

past, excitement grew. One night, they tested the neon lights outside,

which brought all the kids in the area out. There was a special, fully

illustrated opening programme with a silver cover, which was an

achievement with materials rationing still in force. The George had a

very spacious box with three Weststar projectors and WM 29 sound

equipment

On the opening night,

Mrs Palmer was to have performed the ceremony, but she couldn’t

get the champagne bottle to break. Mr McGee tried smashing it on the

door handles, but the audience just wanted to get inside because it was

a freezing night. There was a grand reception upstairs with all the

local councillors and everybody involved in building and equipping the

cinema. The first film was a musical called The Toast of New

Orleans ’

John Duddy, then a projectionist at the Rialto in Airdrie , was impressed by the standards set by the George:

The

George was the first cinema in Lanarkshire with CinemaScope and the

only independent with four track stereo sound. The team of

projectionists gave a flawless performance on the miracle mirror

screen’, which was supposed to show the new wide process to best

advantage; it didn’t as there were obvious joins in the panels,

but the point was that the owners spared no expense in getting the

best. Sometimes, I was told, magnetic stereo prints were flown to

Glasgow at Mr Palmer’s expense. It was no mean feat for a

family-run cinema and a great stunt which none of its rivals ever

attempted.’

In 1954 with business booming, in an era still without mass access to

television, Palmer bought another top class super cinema, this time in

Portobello. The County

was a striking moderne design by T.Bowhill, Gibson and Laing and had

opened in March 1939 for Henry Paulo and Robert Scott (the former was

of fairground origin and the latter was a local businessman). The

County had a sumptous interior, although the balcony lounge in rich red

tartan was perhaps not to everyone’s taste! Palmer intended that

his latest acquisition should be a venue for Edinburgh Film Festival

screenings, so it was refurbished to a high standard and, inevitably,

re-named the George. It too was given tropical fish curtains, the

GP’ carpet, stereo sound equipment (the first Edinburgh

cinema so fitted) and a re-styled lounge with a mirrored wall etched

with a panoramic view of the River Forth. Its fine technical

appointments secured an early showing of The Robe and each Festival

season, it switched to continental films.

County / George Portobello

The era of the super cinema, particularly in provincial areas, was

drawing to a close with the advent of colour television. Even so,

George Palmer correctly believed that people would still want to go out

to the cinema for romance and spectacle in their entertainment. In

February 1969, when his fine George cinema in Irvine burned down, he

refurbished the smaller, older Palace in nearby Chapel Lane and it

became a replacement George. It was only a stop-gap as the site was

compulsorily purchased by the Irvine Development Corporation (Irvine

had been granted new town status) for an office development. Later,

Palmer took a lease on the abandoned Rex in Bank Street, a venerable

hall that had once been a Green’s Picturedrome of the famous

George Green chain. He spent £100,000 rebuilding it as the latest

George with a modern stadium-type interior with wall-to-wall curtaining

in gold. It opened in January 1976. In 1969, Palmer bought the derelict

Pavilion in Barrhead, near Paisley, for £80,000. It was a 1,009

seater dating from the 1920s and it was refurbished, opening as the

George on 11 April 1969 with Disney’s The Jungle Book. The

intention was to attract family audiences, but it was not a success and

closed in December 1977. Although Palmer offered it for sale to the

local Arts Guild for just £30,000, nothing came of the deal and

the George was demolished instead.

Sadly, in the same period, the rest of Palmer’s cinemas closed

one by one. The Viking in Largs, which had been part of the seaside

resort’s magic for countless holidaymakers, shut on 4 August 1973

and was sold to local restaurateurs as a drinks bottling warehouse,

although it has now been demolished. The flagship Georges in Bellshill

and Portobello were both sold for bingo, the former to County

Properties, whose owners were related to the original promoters of the

Portobello cinema. The George in Bellshill continued as a cinema as

repeated applications for a bingo license were refused. No money was

spent on maintenance and it finally closed in 1982 for demolition. Its

Portobello namesake went over to bingo, but despite grade B listed

status, its interior has been carved up and its tower chopped down. The

Radio in Kilbirnie lost its transmitter mast as a bingo hall and it now

lies derelict. The Regal in Girvan became a Vogue bingo hall and the

rest were redeveloped.

George Palmer died in 1980, leaving his widow, Janet, to wind down the

business. The two remaining cinemas were the Georges in Beith and

Irvine, both in Ayrshire (the Palmers had retired to Largs where they

had planned to open another cinema).

George / WMR Irvine

The Beith cinema was put up for

sale in the autumn of 1982, but a surprisingly good run of E.T. over

the Christmas period helped keep it open until the following summer. It

finally closed on 25 June 1983 for conversion to a snooker club,

although the building has since been demolished. The George in Irvine

was sold at the same time to William Mather, the former boss of a

leisure group called Fairworld, and re-christened the WMR Film Centre . It is the only one of George Palmer’s cinemas still showing movies today [2006 update: Now a nightclub] .

Many people reading this story will never have heard of Associated G.P.

Cinemas. The Palmer’s operation was small compared with firms in

the Home Counties, but their often remarkably-designed and always

well-run cinemas brought a touch of glamour to the frequently dull

industrial communities they served. George Palmer was an enthusiastic

showman who made good through his love of the cinema. At the time of

publication, Brian Wilson, the local M.P. for Kilbirnie and now also a

cabinet minister, has set up a committee to plan the restoration of the

former Radio cinema as a community centre. A Largs-based architect and

art deco admirer called Paddy Cronin (of McMillan and Cronin) has been

asked to plan the conversion. Given lottery funding, its tower will be

replaced and it has been suggested that one day the building might even

house a community radio station... [2006 update: the restoration of the exterior is now complete]

Additional photograph — view full size

Alhambra

George

Picture House or Theatre

Other Bellshill cinemas