FREE 5p VOUCHERS

An advert for the ABC Cinemas' Saturday morning Minors Matinees - this one dates back to October 1972. I remember going quite regularly to Saturday morning pictures at this time. Usually rather noisy affairs with kids being dropped off by parents, and often very rarely in time for the beginning of the screenings. So there'd more than often be a racket all the way through the ABC Minors song sing-along , the shorts, the trailers - and which continued well into the main feature as well!

According to the history books, these kinds of matinees had begun in the early 1920s, and the screenings for young folks continued into the early 1980s. But in reality the audiences had dwindled way before then, as had the amount of cinemas left who had bothered to put on kids matinees. So perhaps that's why the ABC decided to run this promotion?

Some of the special Children's Film Foundation titles which we'd be watching on a Saturday morning are still cherished today - such as 'The Boy Who Turned Yellow', which was made by cinema legends Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1972. 

Coincidentally, the film was released the very same year that all those readers of Sandie, Buster and Lion comics had cut out their vouchers and got a seat in their local ABC cinema for just 5 New Pence...

I spotted this advert in SHOOT! magazine, published by IPC Magazines who were based in Farringdon Street, London EC4.

Anglo Gum & Digger Tobacco, London E1

Another of my photographs taken over 25 years ago. A derelict newsagent's shop in Spitalfields, London E1. Adverts covered in grime affixed to what I recall were barred basement windows. 

PLAYER'S DIGGER TOBACCO  and  ANGLO XL GUM

Back in March 2015, I posted the Basutoland Footballer, a product of Anglo's long run of trade cards that often accompanied their gum. Anglo-American, founded in 1929, was a subsidiary of the famed confectionery giant Mackintosh's of Halifax, Yorkshire. 

Player's introduced their DIGGER brand in 1917. Dubbed after a term for an Australian soldier - though "digger" had actually derived from the name given to prospectors of the 19th century gold rush era. The tobacco itself was grown in Africa, India or Canada, and smokers could buy it in a multitude of formats including: flake, mixture, shag, and pigtail.

Once upon a time..."The Best in their Class"

These glass-backed adverts would almost certainly have been destroyed when the time eventually came to refurbish the property..