MY recent article on the inevitable demise of the ABC Cinema in East Street, Brighton, has prompted some wonderful memories from a reader who can recall going to ballroom dancing classes there before the war.

She thinks they were held in the flat in which I lived for so many years, but I suspect they may have been held in the ballroom on the floor below, which also boasted a bar.

This had succumbed to the ravages of time by our day but had obviously once been a splendid place for dances and parties.

She tells of classes that cost the princely sum of sixpence (old money - two and a half pence in today's currency) for an hour's tuition by a lady named Vera Hemsley and her gentleman friend, Mr Alcorn.

Taking pride of place was a gramophone, one of the old wind-up variety (no posh sound systems in those far off days) and the students of the terpsichorean arts solemnly progressed round in a circle till they learned to move in time to the music - one, two, three - before they were allowed to take their partners for the real dancing, which cost another 3d, including a cup of tea!

Such frivolous living. But even better standards were to be had in the restaurant on the first floor.

There you could have an evening meal with waitress service if you so desired. Lunch was available for one shilling and sixpence for two courses or, if you were feeling wealthy, not to mention hungry, you could spend another three pence and, for one shilling and ninepence, add soup or grapefruit to your repast.

I became a councillor while living over the cinema but I had a distinguished predecessor in Alderman Alf Sadler, who was the manager of the cinema during the war and immediately post-war years.

He became Mayor of Brighton and I am sure many people still remember him.

I am indebted to my correspondent for her memories. There must be many who have memories of the back row of the one-and-nines in the old Savoy and the subsequently named ABC Cinema as they recall their courting days.

From what people tell me, it seems the many cinemas that existed in the town in those days, along with the SS Brighton, the sports stadium in West Street, where so many folk met their future husbands and wives on the ice, were the gentler equivalents of the later pubs and coffee bars as a centre for the social life of the town.

What a shame that we no longer have an ice rink. In spite of all the protestations of the powers that be, one does not figure in their plans for the future of this would-be city and almost all the cinemas are now crowded on two multi-screen sites.

The station would make a wonderful place for an ice rink and perhaps the famous Brighton Tigers could raise a roar again from the crowds. Dream on!

Perhaps the ice buffs should make as much fuss as the Albion! Maybe then something would get done.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.