THANK you for your feature on the new Thwaites Theatre, born out of the old Empire Cinema (LET, October 21).

We enjoyed reading about it and were also interested in Mark Best's picture of old Blackburn which started us thinking about the many cinemas that were flourishing at that time.

We wrote down the ones we could remember. As far as we know there were 12 cinemas in and around the Blackburn area, but we could only remember the names of 11.

The cinemas we remember from the 1940s and 1950s are as follows: Royal, Rialto, Majestic, Palace, Olympia Central, Alexandra and one on Eanam whose name we have forgotten but which fell down some time in the 1950s. The others were the Roxy, Savoy, Empire and the Star at Little Harwood.

Of course, coming from Rishton, I must include our own Regal Cinema.

MRS BARBARA CLARKE, Harwood Road, Rishton.

Footnote: Our 'Looking Back' writer Eric Leaver says: "The one whose name you can't remember was The Victoria. It was demolished in 1960 - after its roof collapsed and a 270ft-deep hole was found under its cellar."