Astra cinema, RAF Steamer Point, ADEN 1960-1962

 - and nobody ever noticed!

This article was first published on the ServicePals website

 

 

This memory is associated with the following unit: RAF STEAMER POINT in ADEN. Note: Click on the 2 hyperlinks!

My first, and only, posting overseas, was to Aden in 1960 arriving at Khormaksar from a cold, wet England in February, and as soon as the doors were opened on the chartered Britannia the heat hit you like a brick wall. Welcome to Aden! After the welcoming committee of hundreds of old sweats banging tin mugs on the balcony of the blocks shouting MOONY, MOONY and other friendly retorts, we arrived at the transit billets where I found out that I was not to be stationed at the airfield at RAF Khormaksar as I had expected, but to Steamer Point several miles away at the 114 MU.

As an Instrument Mech. (General), and coming from 2 memorable years with 111 Squadron, the Black Arrows at Wattisham, this was a bit of a let down to be posted to a small instrument section a long way from where the action was. Later on I was pleased for that when the State of Emergency was declared and there was probably too much action.

 I settled in, as much as you can in the circumstances, sharing the Chapel Hill block 236 ( the last one on the hill) with what seemed hundreds packed inside and outside on the balcony, overlooking Cemetery Valley on one side and the bay, Government House, the Mermaid club and the WRAF compound on the other! Work at the Instrument section was routine and very boring, and because of the heat we worked only from 0700 to 1300 hrs. Nothing happened at all during the afternoon apart from the sound of snoring, before life carried on about 5 in the afternoon.

The only redeeming factor with my particular posting was that the personnel of the workshops of the MU had at some time “collared” the running of the Astra cinema near the harbour every evening, as a part time unpaid job. I was in the fortunate position of taking over one of these coveted jobs from a colleague about to leave after 2 years. The cinema itself was situated very close to the harbour, and had no roof at all. As far as I recall it didn’t rain once during my 2 years, but the floor was kept free of sand being blown in, by our sweeper every morning. The seats were wicker chairs and most people brought there own cushion. Sometimes it was difficult to hear the soundtrack because of the wind and occasionally a ship would sound its horn during a particularly critical part of the film. Before the plum job of projectionist every evening at the cinema you had to serve an “apprenticeship”, which was the job of “usher”.

 

This consisted of sitting in the ticket office for 2 hours every afternoon and then checking tickets at the door at opening time. There were many “regulars” who bought a ticket and then asked what film was showing afterwards. This job made you very popular with the other lads in the billet who didn’t want to queue up for a ticket, not of course that I took advantage of that!

After a year and a rotation of jobs due to others leaving I spent the following year as a projectionist. We were always 2 on duty every evening, and we received the reels of film from I think it was Astra, Akrotiri (Cyprus) and we had to show them for about 2 or 3 days before sending them on to, in our case the Astra at Khormaksar (also Aden). The reels were first checked for broken film and if necessary re-spliced ready for the evening’s performance. There were advertisements in the form of slides that were shown first, and now and again we had to stop the film with e.g. “Will all blood donors with O rhesus negative report to the hospital immediately”. The number of reels was usually 6 to 7 depending on the length of the film and our most important task was to ensure the changeover went as smoothly as possible. Just before the end of the reel the other projector had to be started, and then wait for the little yellow circle in the top right hand corner to appear before changing over as smoothly as possible.

Other than that it was pretty routine in between, with only utter panic if both were outside engrossed in the film and hadn’t noticed that the take-up reel was not correctly mounted resulting in the projection room floor covered in film. Now and again there was film that broke, and had to be re-spliced, accompanied by hissing and booing from the occupants of the wicker chairs in the meantime.

Now to the point of my story, one evening on the first showing of as far as I remember, a very boring American film consisting of 6 reels and although these were clearly marked somehow we mixed them up, and the sequence finished up as 1, 2, 3, 5, 4 and 6! As more often than not, the “house” was pretty full up and you would have thought that there was an outcry and people wanted their money back having not been able to follow the film – not in the least – nobody had noticed at all! The following night they were shown in the correct sequence!

Thanks to the Astra - it helped me through my 2 years in Aden.

Philip Markham (ex-4235689 SAC)

 

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