It is so nice to see this site dedicated to the humble projectionist.
I started as a trainee in 1961 at the Beaufort Cineman Ward End Birmingham, I then went from trainee to a 4th then to 3rd and ended up as a 2nd, I then worked at the Capitol Cinema, Kingston Cinema, Plaza, and ended up as a Chief at the Warwick Cinema all in Birmingham.
How I miss them days, once it is in your blood,your hooked.
I have worked on Westrex BTH Supers, and Kalee.
To me Cinemas just are not the same anymore, I do not rate these Multi Screen ones at all, gone are the days when you had a film on the Sunday, Kids film Saturday morning, a film on the Saturday afternoon, then Sunday a film Mon-Wed then Thurs-Fri, all that spooling up, and spooling off, Plus you had the Feature and Support films, not like today one film thats your lot.
Then you have the funny stories where someone forgot to re-wind, you then laced the machine up wondering were the leader was, untill the change over, you re-wound the film at the speed of light, or the wrong reel was put on the machine, and half the story was missing, I could write a book on the things that went wrong.
I dont know about anyone else but every Cinema I worked at had its resident ghost, I must admit I never seen one, sometimes you did get strange sounds in the cinema, and at the Beaufort you would often hear footsteps in the attic, when you went up there, guess what no one to be seen.
I use to collect the posters and stills from films, untill one day I decided to burn them, if only I could have seen into the future, some are worth a fortune now.
Anyway keep this site going it is great.
Michael Wileman.