Local heritage

Church this morning was a commemoration service for Queen Elizabeth.  Afterwards I had a quick coffee then went to catch the bus to town to visit St George's Hall for one of the free Heritage Days.  Quite a lot of people turned up.  I never knew that it had been a cinema before becoming a music venue. A slide show and 2 actors told the history of the hall.  All very interesting - a boy whose father worked there helped out and then left school at 12 years old to work there.  Developing an interest in "moving pictures" he had films made of local people in the city and then invited them to come and view themselves.  He was soon filling the hall.  Interestingly the back area of the hall once also housed a photographic studio, a public house, a hotel and rooms to let.  Hard to imagine now.  We also had a backstage tour, mainly of the dressing rooms we used last week for our concert!  We went onto the stage which seemed huge without all the chairs our choir had used, and my photo is of the view from the stage to the dress circle and top tier - almost an identical Blipsnap with Corinthian!  Chatting to a member of staff she said she had been disappointed last Saturday as she had hoped to see our concert as she is also in a community choir.  However, that night, instead of being at St George's she had been sent across to work at The Alhambra Theatre!  An interesting afternoon.