A Package Arrives (part 4) The Contents Revealed

…well, to be fair it was all a bit of an anti climax. The package contained 2 copies of a newsletter published (probably at great expense) by the ‘Save The Bradford Odeon’ campaign, detailing the latest news and views about the proposed plans to demolish the old Odeon cinema building. Presumably the intention was that I would write a piece about the campaign and publish it on Old Heatonian, although a complete lack of notes or any way of identifying who had sent it so I could talk to them about it precluded this immediately.

You see, in my eyes, the Odeon is an eyesore, and always has been in my lifetime – even when it was open for business.

My first memory of the Odeon was of the time when my mother took me to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks – sometime in the early 70′s I think – when I was but a wee lad. I remember it vividly, because it had just got to the bit when that Murder She Wrote woman had enchanted the bedknob to make the bed fly, when the lights came up, the sound went down and the manager, dressed in a tuxedo and ludicrously out of place dicky bow, walked on to the stage to announce that the building was on fire, and that we should all make our way out of the building in an orderly fashion. As an afterthought he added that our tickets would remain valid for a later showing, should the building survive this catastrophe.

A mere slip of a lad, I think I was more in awe of the sight of the fire engine and its huge ladders than I had been about a flying four poster.

My last memory of the Odeon was to see the Phantom Menace on it’s opening day – and the less said about that odious pile of donkey faeces the better – suffice to say I have tried in vain to scrub that memory out of my head for many years, to no avail.

In between, there were many ground breaking moments of my life accomplished in the Odeon – ranging from furtive fumbling and snogging in the dark with the female conquest du jour, through witnessing rats picking through discarded popcorn wrappers a few seats away from me while watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3, to the act of sheer carnal lust visited  upon me by an Australian girl of my aquaintance halfway through Toy Story. I haven’t been able to look at Woody in the same light since!

I watched every one of the first three Star Wars films there (back when Star Wars was good), including a marathon session one Bank Holiday when I sat through all three with my mates. This coincided with the weekend when I decided that I should finally use the L’Oreal black hair dye I had been hoarding for the last few months, and caused not a few raised eyebrows on my return to work.

But I have never found the Odeon to be an attractive building – the words ‘carbuncle’ and ‘eyesore’ have been associated with the building in my mind for as long as I can remember. Of course, I was sad when it finally closed down – there were a lot of memories of the place itself and what it had contributed to my life. But I have never been sentimental about the building itself, with its grubby red brick walls contrasting starkly with the ‘pseudo marble effect towers’ and the tiled lower entrances which look remarkably like the entrance to a public lavatory.

There is, however, a hard core group of people who think it should be preserved in some way in its present form. Fair enough, in some ways I can even find myself sympathising with them to the extent that I wouldn’t like to see another anonymous glass and steel and concrete monstrosity in it’s place. But neither do I think that the building contributes positively to the ambience of Bradford, such as it is with its derelict buildings and abandoned building sites.

The architectural heart of Bradford City Centre was torn out years ago with the demolition of Swan Arcade and the old Kirkgate Market, and the rot has never really gone away since. Some point to the successful rebuilding of the Alhambra many years ago as an example of what could (or should) be attempted with the Odeon. But the Alhambra was a beautiful building to begin with…

What do you think?