Tragedy the night the old Empire went up in flames

We learn of a visit from the man whose 'daddy blew the trumpet on that fateful day' '“ the very instrument that sounded the charge in the Afghan War in 1878. Local lads were inspired after seeing a strong-man (in a leopard skin?) raising above his head an iron bar weighted at each end. Needless to say, several went home and tried to copy him, using their mothers' kitchen scales. One enterprising lad attempted to use the weights from the back of the coalman's cart. No reports have survived of local experiments with that trumpet.

One epic silent remembered many years later was Quo Vadis '“ the comment at the time was what it cost to produce. To quote my elderly informant: '... wait for it - 1,000'. The film was remade 27 years later in 1951 with a great star-studded cast led by Peter Ustinov, Deborah Kerr and Robert Taylor.

Until sound overtook the movies in 1930 local amateur groups could also take to the stage of the Empire with their dramatic and operatic entertainments. In 1922 they presented Scrooge, adapted from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, played by Messrs W Allen, AR Brewer, LP Selfe, WM Richmond and AM Watson (cinema manager). The programme specified 'Doors open 7.45pm, commence 8.15pm. Carriages 10.30pm'.

By that time the Empire was one of a number of similar establishments under the banner of Oscar Deutsch and was described as well heated and furnished with seating in stalls and circle for 500 patrons, and the projection box sited at balcony level. In 1931 the lease was taken over by Mrs Longdon and business continued there till the night of February 28, 1939, when a disastrous fire gutted the building, causing the death of a fireman, fighting the blaze. Fireman Fred Mace had gone to the top of the escape to direct the hose down on to the flames when a fierce gust of wind twisted the ladder and Mr Mace was hurled to the ground to his death. To this day that piece of land has never again been built on, apart from a EWS (Emergency Water Supply) tank there during WW2. Today it is a small car park next to Seaford Bakery.

Some four years earlier rumours had started: Seaford was to have a rival cinema. Interested parties negotiated with the result that on the seaward corner site of Pelham Road and Dane Road work began in 1935 on what was to be the last word in cinema design, capable of holding more than 800 patrons. This was the Ritz which lasted for 35 years, from its opening night 18 July 1936 (when the top price of a circle seat was two bob (10p), throughout the war years and the austerity that followed, to the sixties and onward with the decline of movie-going generally.

I hope that older folk reading this will have enjoyed reminiscing, recalling some good shows seen there. A few reminders: a Carrol Levis talent-spotting evening/a Miss Seaford contest/ etc, etc. These days our Seascreen newsletter about the activities of our local Film Society reminds us of those days. We regret the passing of the old Ritz, such an imposing building but so prone to a battering from our sea breezes.

PAT BERRY

(Compiled with reference to museum records, verbal recollections, and Mr John Guyatt's 1999 account of The Cinema in Seaford).