Town crier rings bells with memories of American cinema’s magic-making eras

FOR Michael Wood as a child, cinema was a true escape.

From the age of six he’d be taken to the pictures along with his two brothers and left there – the usherette often paid to look after them in fish by their father, a fisherman home on leave and bound for the pub.

The life-long affair with film has continued and now Mr Wood, the East Riding of Yorkshire’s town crier, has published a book in prose and rhyming couplets – some honed during four years as the Hollywood Town Crier.

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Poetry in Motion Pictures takes the reader through the history of American cinema from the magic lantern, through silent, golden and new Hollywood eras and on to 21st century blockbusters, returning to his home city of Hull, which itself achieved a number of cinematic firsts – including the first open-air cinema in Britain.

It didn’t last long – opened for business in July 1912, it closed for winter, never to open again.

Some of the cinemas were places of last resort – Mr Wood’s father told him about being sprayed with “flit spray” in the Eureka – sometimes when the kids were sitting in their seats.

Mr Wood said: “I grew up with a chaotic family and everything made sense to me at the cinema. I thought these are my friends on the screen.

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“I acquired vast amounts of information walking people around Hollywood over four summers.

“Rhyming couplets really impressed the Americans.”

Copies are on sale in Waterstones in Hull, WH Smith in Beverley, price £9.99, or see www.iringmybell.com.