Isn’t it sad when things from your childhood disappear? Behind this fence and these signs there is a nothing. A nothing where there once stood a bland looking warehouse of a building. Where there is now a white painted wooden fence there used to be a huge, yet unimpressive, rectangle of grey only brightened by a massive sign advertising bingo. And I loved it. It was Coleraine Cinema.Long before the Jet Centre, with its polyscreen convenience, came and went and came back again Coleraine had a large single screen auditorium slap bang in the centre of town. It was dank, it smelled of stale smoke and your feet would stick to the carpet as you walked down the aisle; but the seats were plush, the screen was huge, and I loved it.
It was where I had my first movie experience. If I remember correctly the first film I ever saw was Herbie Goes Bananas back in 1980. A terrible film to break my movie virginhood but I went through the entire experience unblinkingly and with my mouth open – I was hooked.
The cinema in Coleraine closed down years and years ago. They put up a bigger complex on the edge of the town with more screens, and better sound, cleaner floors, and minimal personality. The old building became a bingo hall and then briefly an amusement arcade. But in recent years it has lain empty, dormant, awaiting the end. I didn’t mourn at the time – if we wanted the traditional picture house experience we could always go to the Portrush Playhouse. But yesterday, when I looked above that white fence and saw the nothing I felt sad, maybe even heartbroken.
I’ve been so wrapped up in other things that I didn’t notice the fence and the signs go up around the building. Nor did I see the machinery move in. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt such loss if I watched the building gradually go. Or maybe not – maybe it would have been worse to watch the once proud edifice brought slowly to its knees. I don’t know, but I do know that, however pretty the apartments they will inevitably put up in its place, they can never replace the memories and the love I have for the old cinema.
1 comment:
Yes, it was Coleraine's Cinema Paradiso.
Have you noticed how Pentecostal church meetings - the ones where people speak in tongues and have visions of heaven - are held in sheds that seem one gust away from collapse?
The cinema in Coleraine was such a place. The smell of ancient cigars clung to the fabric, but the place was drenched in the expectation of magic. The light from the projector would transport us somewhere else.
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