An extract from Mr Howells's essay
In February 1995, Lewis Howells of Blaenavon in South Wales contacted Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain by mail in response to an announcement in a monthly newspaper for pensioners. Born in Blaenavon in 1922, his father worked in the coal mining industry. On leaving school at sixteen he went to work in the local Post Office as a sorting clerk and telegraphist; in later years he had a variety of jobs, including factory supervisor, industrial graphics display artist and civil servant.
Declaring a special interest in CCINTB, Mr Howells wrote: “Several years ago I helped a local amateur publishing group with gathering nostalgic material about the way people used to live.” Enclosed along with his letter was neatly handwritten ten-page essay entitled ‘Cinema in the Town of Blaenavon, Gwent in the 1930s’ which opens with a description of the local cinemagoing scene, complete with details of each cinema–the building, its management, its programming, its ticket prices; and continues with recollections of some memorable cinema visits. Later in 1995, Mr Howells took part in CCINTB's postal questionnaire survey.