Friday, March 15, marks 100 years to the day since the Phoenix cinema in Walton Street, Oxford first started illuminating its silver screen.

Back then it was known as the North Oxford Kinema. Obviously, it’s a milestone, and all the more so when one considers the 100 years it has spanned: a period of history unparalleled in its social, political and scientific upheaval and innovation.

The cinema has also acted as a cursor for the people of Oxford, enabling everyone, regardless of their education, to become informed about and involved in the changing world around them. And one man in particular helped turn the art of cinema projection into an art form...

Syd Taylor started working at the picturehouse in 1925. And here, in an interview reprinted from 1977, Mr Taylor, who has sadly now died, describes just how the cinema operated.

It all started when, during his first week’s holiday from Acott’s music shop in The High, the 15-year-old Mr Taylor, who happened to be standing on the forecourt of the cinema, was approached by its new owner Benjamin Jay.

“Would you like a job as a projectionist, son?” Mr Jay said. “When I explained I already had a job, he offered to take me on in the evenings. We never discussed wages.

“At the end of my first week he asked: ‘How much do I owe you?’, thrust his hand into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out 17s 6d. It was more than I was earning for working all day at Acott’s and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t long before I joined him full time. The following year I became chief projectionist. “Ben Jay was a magnificent showman. He rechristened the cinema the New Scala — though he dropped the New after a couple of years — brought in a nine-piece orchestra under George Tugwood, which he augmented some evenings with bandsmen from Morris Motors, and introduced fourpence and eightpence only showings with free tea and biscuits at matinées. “That was very popular, particularly in the winter-time with the poor people of Jericho, who could keep warm, get a free tea and see the programme twice round for fourpence. “Normal prices were 4d, 8d, 1s 3d and 1s 10d, but members of the university were only allowed in the best seats and a merry dance they used to lead us. In the middle of the picture, Ben would come into the box and say: ‘Cut the camera and put the lights up. They want a comedy’. So we’d dig out an old one-reeler to keep them happy, then we’d go back to the main feature again where we left off.”

Another favourite trick of theirs was unscrewing the seats. Ben employed a second commissionaire in term time to keep them in order. But it was a thankless task. “If he spotted anyone, he’d move in to throw them out. Then the cry would go up ‘Rescue St John’s’ or ‘Rescue Balliol’, and more often than not the poor commissionaire would end up being chucked out himself. “In the mid-‘20s, queues often stretched a hundred yards down the street, as they were to do again during Eric Bowtell’s reign in the ‘50s and ‘60s — but Ben would never shorten his programme. ‘If there was only one child in the front row, I’d give him the full show,’ he used to say. ‘Queues outside are a good advertisement.’ But his brash methods didn’t go down well with the authorities. Films were one thing. However popular with the patrons, 20-minute singsongs with the words flashed up on the screen were another, and in 1927 the university placed the Scala out of bounds to undergraduates.

In June 1930, the Poyntz family took over and ushered in the quieter style of management, of which, over the course of the next 40-odd years, Mr Bowtell himself was to be the most polished exponent.

Mr Taylor remembers Mr Poyntz issuing the edict: “No more chocolates, sweets or ice-creams People should be able to sit and watch a picture in peace. Besides, I don’t want to upset the old lady who runs the sweet shop over the road!” “In Ben Jay’s day, we even sold Easter eggs,” he recalls. On October 6, 1930, he showed his first talking picture at the Scala — a sound on film movie called The Grand Parade. But they were also equipped to show sound on disc and he thinks the second feature may have been a disc film — The Gold Diggers of Broadway.

Both the cinema and Mr Taylor were growing up and in 1933 he was tempted to Bromsgrove by the offer of becoming chief projectionist at its new Regal cinema. When he finally retired, he became a leading light in Cowley in the cine section of its sports and social club.

For more information on the centenary events marking the Phoenix’s 100th birthday, go to picturehouses.co.uk or call 01865 316570