Harry Blutstein, wrote on the Westgarth Central/Primary School Facebook page:

“Can I test your memories? I think that there were at least three cinemas on High Street between Mitchell and Westgarth streets. I'd love to hear your memories of Saturday matinees”

I used to live at 10 Grandview Grove northcote. A couple of doors down the street lived Rod Doherty. He was a few years older than me and suggested to my mother that we should go to the Northcote picture theatre together.

Rod Doherty and me about that time

My mother gave me, a shilling, I think, which was enough to catch the bus up Basting Street, pay for the entrance to the theater and catch the bus back home.

However if we walked home the throupance we saved on not catching the bus we could use to buy something either at the milk bar or the fish and chip shop.

Running at the theatre there was some sort of American serial about a guy that if he sat down he could not stand up again. He had to sit in some special chair which made him able to stand up. I think he was some sort of a gang leader in a criminal outfit.

During the interval between the serial programs and the main movie, if there was a main movie, they would have a competition were any of the kids that wanted to get up on stage, had to blow up a balloon. The one that burst the balloon first got a prize.

It was a great thrill to stand up on the stage in front of everybody else. I never did it because I was to shy at that time.

I think they might have been other type of competitions. but I can't remember them.

Outside the theatre in Bastings Street was a bus stop for the red bus that will would go down Basting street to Fairfield.

On the wall outside the theatre was posters of the movies that were currently on but they were stuck over the top of the previous ones. I must have been a bit bored waiting for the bus and took out a very small pocket knife and started cutting into one small corner of the posters to see how many previous ones were stuck behind it.

An older kid saw me doing it and went into the theatre and told someone what I was doing it. That person came out and confiscated the pocket knife from me. But did not tell me it was wrong to cut into a small corner of the posters. Not sure if someone could confiscate a child's property. today.

I must have lost interest in going to the pictures because I remember Rod Doherty kept going but I didnt.

In later years I ended up going to the Westgarth picture theatre. I went there initially with the Brown Brothers. Niel and John. The Westgarth theater seemed to be more sophisticated than the Northcote.

I can't remember how I got there or got home again.

At the end of the movie session there was a notice board that had all the results of the days football scores on it. John Brown told me how Collingwood had beat Essendon.

In later years again I would go to Westgarth with my Northcote High friends. Dave Bradshaw, Ivan Kobiolki, Michael Mc donell and Ray Barker.

We still are friends with them today ans speak to them often even though we live in different states.

I remember seeing an Elvis Presley movie where Elvis is on a hill overlooking a beach, singing to the female star. But the waves on the beach never moved. It was obviously only a Hollywood backdrop.