The Middy, November 18 1999

The Great survivor

Today, only Burgess Hill has clung onto it cinema with the Orion in Cyprus Road.

This is surprising as both Haywards Heath and Hassocks appeared to enjoy greater audiences over the years.

Cyprus Road has been the home of Burgess Hill’s cinema since just before World War I.

The original Scala showed regular performances until the proprietor Frederick J Freeman, demolished it to make way for a new building, now the Orion on the same site.

The new hall has a seating capacity of 511, and Mrs G. A. “Topsy’ Goldsmith recalled working as an usherette at the age of 16 in 1929.

She says: "I was very proud of my green and gold uniform, and the wages were 10 shillings a week.

"During the interval I was also the chocolate girl, going round with a tray. £6 was the price of a quarter pound box of chocolates, and two shillings would buy a really lovely box. "

The Scala faced stiff competition from November 1938 with the opening of the studio cinema at Hassocks, later the Odeon, which was part of a chain able to obtain new films earlier. The cinemas at Haywards Heath were also part of a national chain and showed films long before the Scala.

But despite these obstacles, several changes of ownership, and the eventual closing of the Hassocks in Haywards Heath cinemas, the Orion continued to struggle manfully onwards.

The video boom of the 80s caused a wobble and heralded a revamp, but it was not until 1990, when the Robins chain, headed by the veteran showman Bill Freeman and his son Ben, bought the cinema, that it became a twin screen version after a £200,000 overall.

Lee Allwood took over in 1995, changing the name back to the Orion, and now shows the biggest hits concurrently with Brighton.

The opening of Hassocks Studio Cinema by Sir William Campion, of Danny house, on November 28, 1938, was a shot in the arm for village life and put the place firmly on the map. It took 15 weeks to build and sat on the site where Budgens now stands.

Renamed the Orion in 1947, it was demolished in the late sixties to make way for the new Orion shopping arcade.

The Drill Hall centre in Hurstpierpoint operated from behind a cottage on the High Street in the early 1920s by the blue flash company from Horsham. The building still stands as a nursery.

And in 1929, the Chinese Garden Cinema opened in Western Road. This was attached to the Chinese Gardens hotel and pleasure grounds that opened in a 5 and a 1/2 acre site in 1843.

The Pierpoint public house survived until the mid-1990s, with films on show until the 40s, but like the rest of the complex it had no Chinese connection other than its Oriental name.

Balcombe Village Hall, opened in 1923 by Lord Denham of Balcombe Place, was named the Victory Hall and filled its 300 seats every Saturday for film shows in the early 1930s, charging 5d – 1s 3d.

After closing down for the war years, Mr Stuart Davies was quoted a £2/night fee for a four week contract in February 1946, but by May, members of the Hall Committee were expressing concern about the children's behaviour.

The last recorded shows at the hall where in 1949.

On top of this, many films society sprang up across the county over the years, which continued to show celluloid classics to devotees who discussed their merits and faults.

The end of the 1990s has seen a tremendous boom in the cinema industry with multiplexes springing up across the country.

Doubtless true cinema lovers lament the passing of the golden years of cinema in the forties and fifties, with ‘real’ film stars such as Bogart and Buckle, Tracy and Hepburn, Gary Cooper and Jane Russell.

But it cannot be denied the allure of the big screen in a darkened auditorium is as strong today as it is ever been.

Acknowledgements: Cinema West Sussex: the first hundred years (1996), Alan Eyles, Frank Gray and Alan Readman.