I was born in the British Military Hospital in Benghazi, Libya, in 1951. My father, who served as an army officer during World War II, spent the remainder of his working life as a District Manager for the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI), the trading organization of HM Forces, which took our family to Kenya then to Germany. I first became interested in films during visits to the Jerboa Cinema, Berlin, where we were stationed between 1956 to 59. The Jerboa was the Western Europe flagship cinema of the Army Kinema Corporation which operated cinemas at most military bases, except those of the RAF, throughout the world. 1959 brought a new posting to the delightful town of Verden, by the River Aller, in northern Germany. There were two British army barracks in this town where the military community was served by the AKC Globe Cinema, a single level cinema seating perhaps 400 which was constructed in the early fifties. By now I was old enough to attend the cinema on my own. With little other entertainment for impecunious national servicemen, the Globe effortlessly enjoyed full houses. Programmes changed four times weekly, with me attending as many as pocket money and parents would permit. In addition to the main feature and a twice weekly change of Pathe News, programmes included cartoons, comedies and short interest films. Years later I discovered that the Film Booking Manager of the AKC was a Mr Sidney Pound. To this day he has my everlasting gratitude for introducing me to Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, The Three Stooges, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Popeye and a host of other comedy and cartoon characters, all of whom I first saw and came to love as a schoolboy in this dear little army cinema. Although I had by now decided to become a film star (as distinct from an actor) when I was grown up, I was also becoming increasingly interested in the cinema itself, that is to say I was becoming aware of, and curious about, the building in which I was watching all these films. One evening I plucked up the courage to ask if I might be allowed to see the projection room. I had long been intrigued by the flickering beam of light emanating from the small windows at the back of the hall and culminating in the huge moving picture on the screen. I was literally speechless when I laid eyes for the first time on the two huge projectors, each easily six feet high, towering over my diminuitive ten year old self.. The projectionist patiently explained how the film was threaded through the machines (laced up), how the sound was reproduced, the light sourced from carbon arc lamps, the projectors switched seamlessly from one to the other at the end of each twenty minute reel, as well as showing me how the auditorium lights were raised and dimmed. I was permitted to remain in "the box" during the screening of the news, adverts and trailers. Well, that was it. I was hooked. In 1963 our family returned to the UK where we settled in the coastal town of Montrose. Much of my misspent youth involved attending the town's splendid, though faded, Playhouse. A superb cinema built in 1932, it was little changed by the 1960s. I began to fall in love with this building as well as the two cinemas in the neighbouring town of Arbroath both of which were equally wonderful, though architecturally and decoratively quite different, examples of 1930s picture palaces. Having decided by this time that I might not quite be the material of which instant film stars are made, I decided I would become a cinema manager, thus enabling me to spend my entire waking life within these wonderful buildings while at the same time relieving me of the impending necessity of having to actually work in a proper job, a prospect which increasingly appalled me. In 1968 I became a trainee projectionist in the Ritz, Dundee (was there ever a more inappropriately named cinema ? Some locals called it the Shitz ), moving a few months later to the huge Plaza in the same city. In 1969, I made the leap to trainee manager at the ABC, Dundee. My career as a manager had begun. During the 1970s, I did relief work at various Glasgow and Edinburgh cinemas finally becoming manager of the Curzon Glasgow. This was followed by a spell at La Scala, Edinburgh (known locally as the Scabby La La), then the Classic, Glasgow before moving south to England and the fabulous Embassy, Esher, then the Empire, Watford (briefly) before finally ending up at the Embassy, Waltham Cross. 1979 saw me returning north of the border to Glasgow as Circuit Controller for Scotland's largest cinema operator, Caledonian Associated Cinemas. A couple of years later, I took on the additional duties of Film Booking Controller then eventually I was appointed General Manager. I left CAC in the mid 1980s disappointed by increasing emphasis on bingo and other operations, not to mention Machiaevelian internal politics, together with the closure and sale of most of the company's more rural, single auditorium cinemas. Out of the blue came an offer to return once again to Germany, this time, of course as an adult ( if I can ever be thus described). I took up a great new job as European Cinemas Manager for the Canadian Armed Forces, stationed at CFB Baden Soellingen in south west Germany and responsible for running a single screen cinema at this base togther with another at CFB Lahr. Well, I had a great time for the next four years. It would take a book to describe that period of my life. I came back to the UK in 1990 to find myself in the age of the multiplex. I don't like them nor do they (their management) like me. I am an anachronism, a dinosaur as far as cinemas are concerned. I like running cinemas where you meet and greet your patrons, buildings with history and character, dedicated, often long serving, occasionally eccentric staff who love what they do.I gave up the cinema at this point. Perhaps, more accurately, cinema gave me up. I have done a few other things since, including 13 years running clubs for the armed forces. Nothing has ever filled the gap left by cinema - with one exception - so I'll sign off here. Now 58 years old, look like the Picture of Dorian Gray, greatly miss the cinema, the one great enduring love of my life, hugely appreciate the wealth of photos of former picture palaces on this and other sites.