Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive

In November 1994, Ruby Stewart of Clydebank, Glasgow wrote to Annette Kuhn following a visit by the Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain team to her local WEA [Workers Educational Association] branch. Born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire in 1913, she was one of five children: her father was a shipwright and her mother was in service before marrying. The family moved to Clydebank when Ruby was eight years old. After leaving school at the age of fourteen, she worked at the Singer sewing machine factory until her marriage in 1937. On 7 February 1995 she was interviewed at her home in Clydebank as part of CCINTB’s fieldwork pilot.

In the course of a wide-ranging conversation Mrs Stewart mentions a number of relatively recent films she had seen locally. With the interviewer’s encouragement she talks about some films and stars of the 1930s and, alluding to the immense changes in Clydebank’s urban landscape since the 1930s, expresses regret about the loss of local cinemas. Much of the interview, however, consists of a lengthy and riveting eye-witness account of the Glasgow Blitz of March 1941. She was returning home from the cinema—she recalls that the film was The Mark of Zorro—when “all the commotion started, the guns and the bombs and everything.”

Interview audio (audio file only)
Interview transcript | Listing of cinemas, films and stars mentioned

Documents, Memorabilia and Related Links

Glasgow home page
Scan of document (RS-94-024PL001) | Transcript
Clydebank Cinemas (scottishcinemas.org)