The Sound of Laughter (18 page)

'Is there nothing you want to do with your life?' he said.

'I'm only here for the summer to earn a bit of cash before I go back to university,' the lad said.

Roy hated students.

'And what are you studying?'

'Politics, European Law and Advanced Semantics,' he replied.

'That's all very well and good but where's that going to get you?' said Roy.

I worked a lot of hours that summer. I had to, just to
feed my expensive habit – learning to drive. After two tests I was now on to my third instructor, Norris. I got him out of the free paper
Loot.
And what a big girl's blouse he turned out to be. He was a nervous wreck with a sweepover and a tank top. Like Frank Spencer on steroids. And he had absolutely no confidence in my inability to drive. I remember he once said, 'The road is the classroom and you are the pupil.' To say we didn't get on would be putting it mildly.

Impatient and stubborn (well, so would you be after 146 lessons), I demanded that he put me in for the test, which he did. I failed miserably on both attempts. Once, for arguing with the examiner before we'd even left the examination centre car park. He wanted to go left and I wanted to go right. The second time I failed because I had to swerve to avoid hitting a bread van on Bury Road. Surely that couldn't be deemed as my fault? The feckless arsehole never indicated.

But when I got back to the test centre the examiner told me what I already knew.

'I'm sorry to tell you, Mr Kay, but you've failed your test. Can I ask you what you plan to do now?'

'Find the driver of that bread van and kick his fucking head in,' I said.

The examiner got out of the car leaving me slumped over the wheel in a deep depression.

The closest I'd got to owning my own vehicle was buying a knock-off mountain bike. I loved that bike and used to cycle to work on it all the time. It frightens me now when I think that I never used to wear a cycling helmet. The bike didn't have any lights either and I always used to listen to my Walkman when I was cycling too. How I wasn't knocked down and killed I'll never know.

Like I said, I worked a lot of hours, but Sunday was my worst shift. I used to do fifteen hours straight through with a twenty-minute tea break. I'd usually grab some food and sit out the back on some bread trays admiring the baking sun. Wincey Willis was right, it truly was a glorious summer and I was bitter to be missing it. The stifling heat made the Top Rank even more unbearable. And every Sunday would culminate with the mother of all bingo games, the National.

The National was when all the bingo clubs in the region linked up to play live for a jackpot prize of half a million pounds. It was a very prestigious game, so much so that Roy changed the colour of his bow tie when the club switched to a live link-up. Lord knows why as the other clubs couldn't see him. He used to call it 'PP', 'Professional Presentation'. God, he was a knob.

In order to comply with the national gaming
federation rules nobody was allowed to make a noise during the national. The bar shutter went down and food was no longer available. The staff had to stand like mannequins. No one could glass collect, no one could move, no one could breathe because there was so much 'big money' at stake. And if there was any kind of disruption the bingo hall responsible could find themselves landed with a hefty fine.

One night during the National, I was busy in the kitchen washing cups and plates. I was knackered and hot. It had been an incredibly hectic night and the floor in the kitchen was wet through. I'd forgotten to put the 'Caution: Slippery Floor' sign up as the health and safety act requires, but I don't think even that would have helped my supervisor Janice as she came charging through the door to tell me that 'the National has just started'. But before I had the chance to warn her, her feet hit a wet spot on the floor which sent her skidding across the floor on her arse.

I got a verbal warning. Apparently Roy was furious but he never said anything to me. Still, things started to go downhill after that. I got a second verbal warning a week later for putting the wrong fluid in the dishwasher. That was a genuine mistake but the kitchen supervisor wasn't happy when three hundred teacups came out of the dishwasher dirtier than they went in.

The following Saturday night it was my twenty-first birthday. I'd booked a meal for the family at a pub restaurant that had been highly recommended. I was all set for a lovely night out until I found out they'd double booked the table. The place was chock-a-block, so all we could do was wait. . . and wait. . . and wait some more. We finally decided to throw in the towel at half past nine. We were all hungry, fed up and my nephew was about to have one of his tantrums. He was tired after having spent all day pounding the streets as a traffic warden. That was a shit joke, sorry.

We ended up calling into a Chinese chippie on the way back. Then when I got home I threw up all over the vestibule. I thought the sausage had tasted a bit funny. So there I was, twenty-one years old and my head stuck down the toilet. Happy Birthday!

The next morning I felt rotten but got up and cycled to work regardless. When I got to the Top Rank, Beryl, one of the kitchen staff, took one look at me and told me to go home. 'You can't make three hundred sandwiches when you've got the shits.' She always had a way with words did Beryl.

The next day I was hauled into the manager's office and he sacked me. I asked him why and he accused me of neglecting my work due to having a birthday hangover. I tried to tell them about the dodgy food but
he wasn't having any of it. Bloody bingo mafia. I'm convinced to this day that Roy was yanking his chain.

'Plus you were seen on the CCTV footage cycling your bike through the main hall,' he said.

I had to admit that was true but I'd always done it. It was half seven on a Sunday morning for God's sake, I was hardly going to knock down any pensioners. And anyway, how was I to know I was being filmed?

'I have no choice but to terminate your employment,' he said.

'When you say terminate my employment, what do you mean?'

'I mean as from today you are no longer an employee of Top Rank bingo.'

But still I quizzed him. 'When you say terminate does that mean I can't even come into the building for game of bingo? Are my family terminated? Or are they allowed to play bingo?'

We discussed the word terminate in great detail for over twenty minutes and then he eventually lost his cool.

'Look,' he said, 'we've been over and over this, I have nothing more to say, you are finished working for Top Rank bingo, your employment is no more and still you persist in discussing it. Why?'

'Because I've not clocked off yet and I've just got another twenty-five minutes out of you.'

'Get him out of my office,' he said through gritted teeth.

I ended up being escorted off the premises like a common criminal. I never went back there ever again. It's shut down now and boarded up. Good riddance.

Last night I went to the cinema and watched
Superman Returns.
And as the opening titles came on the screen I found myself filling up. Before I knew it I was unable to control myself and had tears streaming down my cheeks. I must admit that I like a good cry occasionally – I'm sure you'll agree it does you good to shed a few tears – but at
Superman?
I mean it's hardly
The Champ
or
Who Will Love My Children?

I think it touched me so deeply because Bryan Singer, the director, has gone to great lengths to recreate the feel of the original
Superman
movie from 1978 and for a few minutes I was completely transported back to my childhood, to the Lido cinema in Bolton, to when I was five. I know it sounds freaky but I can even remember
exactly where my Dad and I sat when we first watched the film.

Superman
was a big deal when it was released in 1978 and the tag line for the film was: 'You'll believe a man can fly.' I was so overwhelmed and fired up after seeing it that as we left the cinema that afternoon in December I immediately removed my arms from my parka and I flew off down Newport Street. Skidding through sleet and snow thinking I was Superman, humming the tune over and over while my dad bought some new steel toecap boots from the World-Famous Army & Navy Store.

Those feelings of excitement came back last night as soon as I heard that powerful John Williams score again and I found myself a blubbering mess.

I've talked before about memories being relived through music, but this was the first time I'd ever experienced a similar feeling on a visit to the cinema. That's why I still love cinema so much, because even after all these years no matter where you are, when you go or what you're watching you completely escape from the real world for a couple of hours.

Superman
was one of the first times I ever felt completely removed from the world outside. Then it happened again when I saw
Close Encounters of the Third Kind — Special Edition
(that's the one where they show
Richard Dreyfuss going into the spaceship at the end). I remember my amazement when I saw the colossal mother ship landing. I just gawped at it with my eyes out on stalks.

But if there's one film that succeeded in transporting a whole generation it must be
Star Wars.
That was the big one, no doubt about it. I'm not even a huge
Star Wars
fan. I can't rattle off the make and model of Han Solo's screwdriver and I can't tell you the name of Luke Skywalker's mother's cousin, but I do have total admiration for George Lucas and what he's achieved (excluding
Howard the Duck).
Is it me or does George Lucas look as though he's slowly turning into Chewbacca the older he gets?

When I saw outer space on the big screen for the first time it had me hook, line and sinker – by the end of the film I was bouncing up and down in my seat, shooting pretend rayguns at the other baddy spaceships and Darth Vader. I genuinely felt as though I was in the final battle scene at the end. I too should have got a medal for blowing up
Death Star.

The reason I'm telling you all of this is because after leaving Top Rank bingo my next part-time job was to be a cinema usher at the very same cinema where I first saw
Superman
and
Star Wars.

Still furious from the Top Rank fiasco, I found myself
down the jobcentre yet again. I was still working at the garage but my hours were down to just one morning a week. If truth be told, I was only keeping my hand in in order to feed my ongoing dependency on blank tapes and batteries.

I'd also left the cash and carry job a few months earlier after they decided to close the branch behind the abattoir and move to a new state-of-the-art store eight miles away. The new depot was enormous, so big that HB and the other managers had to drive around in golfing buggies just to get from one end of the store to the other. But all the fun was at the old building. I found the new store very corporate and clinical. HB wasn't allowed to use his air horn any more and we were no longer able to nick ourselves a fortune. The new depot was like Alcatraz the security was that tight. It was time to leave.

'Customer Care Assistant at a busy town-centre cinema' – that's what the card said in the jobcentre. Fourteen hours a week, £3 an hour.

'The wage is crap,' I thought to myself, 'but imagine all the films I'll get to watch for free.' It would hardly be like work at all.

It must have been the fastest job I ever got. I took the job card out of the stand over to Mandy behind the desk (we were on first-name terms as I'd become one of her
regulars). She rang the cinema and they told her to send me straight round. So I walked the two hundred yards to the Lido on Bradshawgate. It was there I first met the manager, Mrs Hayworth. She looked me up and down and said, 'Right, you can start Saturday, wear a white shirt and black trousers, we supply the bow tie.' And that was that. Within fifteen minutes I was officially a cinema usher.

It felt strange at first being on the 'other side', I mean to be
working
in a cinema, especially one I'd been going to as a customer my entire life.

There used to be two cinemas in Bolton when I was growing up. The Lido and the Odeon on the other side of town opposite the bus station. I have to say that my favourite (and most people my age in Bolton will probably agree) was the Odeon. Sadly it was shut in the mid-eighties and turned into the Top Rank bingo hall. Which was an absolute abomination in my opinion (and so was my job there).

I thought the Odeon was a magnificent cinema, with striking chandeliers and two giant staircases that wound up either side of the beautiful art deco foyer. I used to love that walk to the screen. It was so exciting, shuffling into the darkness, having to adjust your eyes to the light so you could find the aisle and choose a seat for yourself.

The Odeon's was one of the grandest foyers I've ever
seen in a cinema. It was huge, with two cashier desks to cope with the demand during the school holidays. There were always a plethora of exciting and colourful cardboard stands in the foyer, advertising the new film releases. I loved those and the posters too – 'James Bond is Back', or a tenth
Police Academy.
God, it was exciting. It never leaves you.

I also love watching the trailers before the film starts. In fact, you could forget all about the main feature as far as I'm concerned. I'd be happy just sitting watching trailers for two hours. I'm gutted if I ever get there late and miss them. Because that for me is what going to the cinema is all about, watching trailers and seeing just how much food you can stuff into your mouth before the film starts and then spending the rest of the film craving a Kiora to quench your thirst.

The other thing I always loved about the Odeon was the smell of it, that sumptuous aroma of warm popcorn and Westlers hot dogs. I know all cinemas have that smell but for some reason it always smelt better at the Odeon.

Not that we ever bought popcorn or hot dogs at the cinema, oh God no, we used to smuggle all our own treats in with us. Well, I say we, it was my mum who used to do all the smuggling. We'd visit the paper shop across the road from the cinema and stock up on eats and
treats. Pop, crisps, lollies, chocolate, the lot. Then nonchalantly my mum would stagger into the foyer, scrunching as she walked over to the counter with a bottle of Rola Cola down each sleeve of her anorak and her pockets stuffed full of Twister crisps and Sherbet Dib Dabs.

'Can I have three for
Pete's Dragon
please?' she'd say as casually as she could muster.

Smuggling treats into the cinema has been a hard habit to break, much to the disgust of my wife. Even today I can't stop myself from visiting the Texaco garage on the way to the multiplex in order to stock up on Evian water and a family bag of Revels. Some people may consider me to be a tight arse but it's hard to fight tradition. It's been bred into me not to 'pay those cinema prices'.

Once every twelve months I'll treat myself to a pick 'n' mix selection but even then I try and stick to the light stuff like marshmallows and flumps. Stick three pieces of fudge in the bag and you can be paying over a fiver. I'm surprised they don't wear a mask and a striped jumper at the tills, the robbing swines.

Another thing I liked about the Odeon was the Saturday-morning kids club. We used to watch old Norman Wisdom films and serials like
The Double Deckers, Banana Splits
and
Big John, Little John.
We also
watched one with Charlie Drake where he played a professor who shrunk to the size of a telephone after drinking some kind of potion. I can't remember what it was called but it wasn't much good.

They also used to play games at the kids club, have competitions and occasionally they'd have publicity stunts. Like the time three hundred of us turned up to watch Spiderman scale the walls of the Odeon at half nine in the morning. Well, it obviously wasn't the real Spiderman, just some fella in a fancy dress costume. A bit like Fathers for Justice.

It was chucking it down with rain but we all let out a joyous cheer when Spiderman turned the corner in a Hillman Avenger. But our happiness was to be short-lived when some council workers turned up with the local health and safety officer and told Spiderman he wasn't allowed to climb the Odeon. They said it was too much of a risk and blamed adverse weather conditions.

We were gutted and vented our anger by pelting the council workers with pop bottles out of a skip at the back of the building. As a result the kids club was closed for two weeks and we missed the regional premiere of
Digby — the Biggest Dog in the World.

Bloody jobsworth council. It's a pity they weren't on the ball as much when I played the town hall on my last tour and my bloody dressing room got robbed.
Unbelievable. I played almost every theatre in Britain and then got robbed in my home town. Charming!

One thing you don't get at the cinema any more these days is double bills. They were all the rage in the seventies and eighties. I can remember my grandad sneaking me off school and taking me to watch
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
and
The Spy Who Loved Me.
I thought double bills were great because you could be in the cinema for up to four hours at a time.

My arse was numb watching double bills such as
The Black Hole
and
Condorman, Hooper
and
Airplane!, My Little Pony
and
The Killing Fields.
I made the last one up but it wouldn't have been out of place back in the day when the double bill was king. They really had some bizarre combinations of films thrown together. Regardless of genre, cast or certification. Like
Sweeney 2
and
Convoy, The French Connection
and
Bugsy Malone,
and I swear I once saw a listing in our local paper for
Mary Poppins
and
Deep Throat.

That would have been at the Lido. They went slightly pornographic for a few years after the cinema industry slipped into a decline due to the arrival of home video. They resorted to showing soft porn in their 'adult lounge' as they called it. It was actually an upstairs cafe they had turned into a seventy-seat cinema screen.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town the Odeon
struggled on, managing to hold its head up high as one of the last bastions of traditional family entertainment. And while they were screening children's classics such as
Dumbo, Bambi
and
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
the Lido had resorted to showing filth like
I
am a Nymphomiac, Sandra is Anybody's
and
Snow White Does the Seven Dwarfs.

Cinema came out of its decline in the mid-eighties thanks to box-office smashes like
Ghostbusters
and
Gremlins.
Not to mention the
Rocky
and
Rambo
films. The latter was banned by the local council after being considered too violent for public consumption. Bloody council killjoys again. I noticed they weren't so quick to stop the Lido having a late night screening of
Titty Titty Gang Bang.

I was at the cinema every week during my teenage years and continued to be just as totally consumed with it as I was when I first saw
Superman
and
Star Wars.
I'd run out of the cinema each week believing I was a character from the film I'd just watched. I remember thinking I was Marty McFly on my pretend skateboard, sliding through the snow to the bus station after watching
Back to the Future.
Or sweeping the leg all the way to the 582 bus with Paddy after watching
The Karate Kid.
Both of us waxing on and waxing off as we climbed the stairs to the top deck.

Another film I went to watch with Paddy was
Rocky IV,
the one where he fights the Russian. It was a huge success when it was first released and everybody wanted to see it. We sneaked out of school early and caught a bus into town so we could catch the teatime showing at half four. The plan worked. The place was only a third full but as we exited through the fire doors at the end of the film we walked into pandemonium. People were queuing twice round the block and down to the red-light district. Anyway, a scuffle had broken out after the cinema staff informed the customers that they were now full. In the bedlam that ensued someone smashed the glass casing on the poster for
Death Wish 3
and the police had to be called to restore peace. It made it on to the headlines of the
Bolton Evening News
the next day:
'ROCKY RIOTS CINEMA STAFF ON THE ROPES'.

Eventually the Lido shed its soft-porn image and was rejuvenated as a Cannon cinema with a Monday-night film club. You could watch any film you desired for a pound. My mum and dad used to take me every week and we had a great time watching films such as
The Jewel of the Nile, Remo
–
Unarmed and Dangerous
and
Clockwise
with John Cleese, to name but a few.

We also went to see
Crocodile Dundee,
an experience I'll never forget as that was the time my dad decided to take a flask of coffee into the cinema with him. They
sold it in the foyer but of course my dad refused point-blank to 'pay those cinema prices'.