An extract from Myra Schneiderman's letter
Early in 1995, Myra Schneiderman of Cardiff responded to a request in ‘Mature Tymes’ for 1930s cinemagoers to get in touch with Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain. Born in London in 1931, Mrs Schneiderman left school at the age of seventeen and was a shorthand typist throughout her working life. In a long letter she details memories of early visits to the cinema with her mother to see “suitable” films including
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and
The Wizard of Oz; of queueing to get into “the pictures” and what it was like inside the cinema; of the varied items in a cinema programme; of added attractions such as the cinema organ that appeared “magically from some subterranean kingdom”; and of copying fashions from the films: “I remember an aunt of mine sewing lace collars onto every dress she had, as she had seen Ginger Rogers wear a lace-collared dress in a film.” Later in 1995, Mrs Schneiderman took part in CCINTB’s postal questionnaire survey.