Remembering the Well Hall Odeon with a new painting

Now, there has been a lot of talk recently about the cinemas of Eltham.

And like pubs on the High Street people have started championing their favourite, whether it be the ABC by Passey Place or the Gaumont on the hill.

Of course you would have to be pretty old  to remember that there was another cinema in Eltham on the corner of Westmount Road.

I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.  It opened in 1913 and was demolished in 1968

Like so many of the early cinemas it proved “not fit for purpose” when the newer, plusher and more modern looking picture houses came along later in the century.

For me the best, and the most modern looking of all our cinemas was the Well Hall Odeon.

It was just minutes away from where I lived and was somewhere I visited a lot and some where all my sisters went on a Saturday morning.

So I was pleased when Peter offered to paint the place and here is his painting.

We have been working together for a number of years now on joint ventures which have included the 80 meter History Wall installation, as well as  exhibitions and a new book.*

Now Peter is a Preston lad always keen to tell me “that you can take the boy out of Preston, but never Preston out of the boy” which I guess is how many of us also feel about Eltham.

Work, marriage and just life may have scattered many of us across the country and beyond but this corner of south east London bounded by the river and Woolwich to the north and Kent over the county line will remain home.

So now that Peter has got a taste for Eltham we may have more of his paintings.

In the meantime just talking about Saturday morning pictures reminded him of the song he sang all those years ago.

It began with the refrain

We come along on Saturday morning
greeting everybody with a smile

We come along on Saturday morning
knowing it’s well worth while

And for those that want to return to those Saturdays mixing the noise, the talent contests and the old films here is a link to that lost world.  Saturday Morning Song **

Painting; The Well Hall Odeon © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

*A new book for Didsbury, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/a-new-book-for-didsbury.html

**We come along on Saturday morning
greeting everybody with a smile

We come along on Saturday morning
knowing it’s well worth while

Members of The Odeon Club we all intend to be
good citizens when we grow up and carriers of the free

We come along on Saturday morning
greeting everybody with a smile, smile, smile,
greeting everybody with a smile.

And as Peter points out even the screen can get it wrong.

NB the words sung by WHO? say
Members of The GB Club we all intend to be
but the words on screen where
Members of The Odeon Club we all intend to be
Found this explanation on Tinterweb as explanation for GB instead of Odeon

This one has the audio for Rank's other cinema chain (Gaumont British) hence the singer singing "GB Club" instead of "OD-EON Club". But it was the same song otherwise.