Candleshoe
I think I was about ten or eleven and I was taken to the Saturday morning pictures by a friend of my mother’s. Mrs H used to work as a childminder and foster carer so she was always surrounded by hoards of children, one more was no problem.

Off we went to the tiny cinema in Herne Bay – it’s been knocked down since to make way for a car park.

Maybe we had sweets, maybe popcorn or even squash. To be honest, it was so long ago I don’t remember. It’s more likely that we had nothing – sweets had only just come off rationing to be a treat.

So there we all are, a cinema full of pre-pubescent boys and girls all watching the big silver screen expectantly.

The organ plays – yes, not only was this a Long Time Ago but as a seaside town the cinema had an organ – although I don’t think it was at the front with flashing lights and a man in a sparkly jacket, but it could have been…in my head, at least.

And at last the curtains go back to reveal the first film.


Back in those days there were always two films show – the Feature Presentation and a B-Movie. Not like the heyday of American Cinema where the B-Movie would be something like ‘The Thing’ or ‘Killer Tomatoes from Mars’, no, here in the UK as recently as the 80s we would get a B-Movie all about the Water System. Twenty minutes or if you were really unlucky, half and hour of mind and bum numbing facts about how water gets from the reservoirs to our taps, all explained with the help of line diagrams and the occasional clip of ‘action’ from the processing plant.

Thrilling stuff!



Then the intermission.

Organ again.

Ice cream if you were lucky.

Loos.

If you’re about 11 and easily bored then you slip off to the loos just to stretch you legs and see if there are any nice boys sweets to be had.

Into the ladies with one of the girls – Jackie - who was being fostered with Mrs H, quick pee and we’re standing side by side washing our hands.

“Have you got ten pence?” Jackie asks me.

“Why yes I have. My mother gave it to me this very morning with the express request that I purchase some sweets for myself.”*

Two ten pence coins are then inserted into the rusty looking machine upon the wall. The machine promises a little box with flowers upon it in return for the coins.

Sweets! We think…

The knob is turned and “Clunk” the box falls into the dispensing chute.

The box is very pretty. It is white with pale green leaves and ribbons upon it.


We open the box – maybe the sweets are inside.


No sweets.


Instead a rather strange item is removed – it’s oblong, about an inch thick and of similar size to a house brick.

It appears to be made from cotton wool wrapped with toilet paper and each end sports a natty little loop.


“Oh look!” Says Jackie, “It’s for when you have a headache!”


She slips the loops over her ears and brings the brick to settle upon her forehead.


“That looks silly” I say in my pre-pubescent wisdom.


The door opens, in walks Mrs H.

“You’re missing Candleshoe!”

We ask about the headache brick. She tells me that my mother will explain it to me.


Soon we are sitting back in our hard chairs watching the young Jodie Foster be a charming orphan in England.


It was a dull film, yet I’ve never forgotten going to see it. I still wonder to this day whatever those things were that we bought in the ladies toilets….and my mother never did explain it to me.



*My recollection may not be exact.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:28, 8 replies)

Love it
love it, love it!

More of these sorts of stories please miss poultry.
(Bazongaloid, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:33, closed)

v. cute story
i secretly loved 'Candleshoe'
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:35, closed)

You should see what they sell
in the loos of the Leeds' Yates. It's obscene!
(Northern Lovely, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:50, closed)

I read
I giggled
I clicked

*were films when you were little in colour and everything then?

;-)
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 18 Jul 2008, 14:54, closed)

The films were
but our tv wasn't.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:11, closed)

ooo.
I think I might know what the headache brick was! It sounds like a really really oldschool jamrag. The kind my mum used to complain about that you had to attach to a belt that had little hooks on it and was a bastard to keep in place before the age of adhesive ones.
( Maladicta, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:44, closed)

Wish I could click on replies
Simply for the phrase "Oldschool jamrag".
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 18 Jul 2008, 21:02, closed)

I recently
attended a sex education lesson with my year 5s. Not that I don't know what it's about, after 6 years of marriage you do tend to forget though, but to be there if they had any questions etc.
It was the head teacher taking the lesson and it was just the girls so she could talk to them about being on the blob.
To show them what jamrags were like she got out one of the old loop ones! I didn't even know you could still buy them!
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sat 19 Jul 2008, 22:28, closed)