IT was glorious occasion that Southampton cinemas found their voice for the very first time and the Gaiety in the High Street was where a trip to the pictures changed forever with the showing of Al Jolson’s film The Singing Fool.

Back in 1929 the film caused a huge stir as it was the first “talkie’’ and was so popular that the same presentation ran for a total of three weeks.

The Gaiety stood on the corner of the small road, Albion Place and the High Street, not far from the Mayes departmental store, and first opened for business on September 26, 1914, soon after the outbreak of the First World War. It was a busy time for the cinema business in Southampton as the Gaiety was one of five that opened in the same year and according to the record books the first screening was a three-part patriotic epic entitled Loss of the Birkenhead. The following month the Gaiety showed Sir Herbert Tree as Svengali and after this was a film claimed to be “the greatest army picture ever produced’’, Kitchener’s New Army.

Later the cinema, that at one time boasted a full orchestra under the leadership of Ernest Verdi, tended to become the home of film zombies and ghouls, sheriffs and lone star rangers. There was a slightly exotic appearance to the building that was originally designed to have a Moroccan look but later this changed after the premises were modernised. At one time the Gaiety was also known for another more risque architectural feature. The back stall seats had curtains that could be drawn around, completely obscuring the screen, but the couples in this part of the cinema seemed unconcerned by missing the film.

Daily Echo:

For 42 years, the Gaiety, with 800 seats priced from 3d (1p) up to a shilling (5p), attracted Southampton audiences but in April, 1956 the owners announced the theatre was forced to close. “The cinema has been very successful in the past, but owing to the high cost of films and labour, it was felt that it could not continue as an independent house,’’ announced the management who had owned the cinema since the day it openedMemories of the Gaiety lived on as in May, 1968 the Daily Echo published a letter from Alfred F. Chappell, who then lived near Hythe and who had previously been the cinema’s manager during the Second World War when it was popular with American soldiers.

“The Gaiety was my most interesting management, especially when it became the Yanks’ favourite rendezvous where they dumped their ladies after victorious conquests,’’ recalled Alfred.

“They came in with them, sat a short while with them, and left them for conquests anew and by 6pm daily the circle was full of discarded ladies.

Daily Echo:

“I remember my first introduction to the Gaiety. As I walked in a huge rat walked out with a kipper in its mouth. It had actually pinched the kipper from Miss Hinds, my café and milk bar manageress.

“Rats were desperate as all the buildings around the Gaiety had been flattened during the war and these vermin were starving.’’