IT'S a place where superstars from Charlie Chaplin to the Beatles entertained. Over a three-quarter-century span it served St Helens as Cinema, dance hall and nightclub. And now the changes are being rung yet again.

There's a whole lot of knocking and banging going on at the Plaza nightspot down Duke Street. Teams of workmen have moved in to facelift the landmark building with its distinctive and dumpy turret-like roof feature. And soon it takes on a new lease of life, joining the town centre's proliferation of wine bars, with the added attraction of also being bracketed as a 'real ale' house.

The walls of the old building enclose a million memories stretching back to when it began life as the Oxford Cinema (known locally as th'Ocky).

Kids - now in pensioner bracket - who swarmed to its Saturday morning 'penny crush' matinees were brought up on an unsophisticated escapist diet of Flash Gordon, Roy (the limp-wristed cowboy) Rogers and menacing Bela ('Dracula') Lugosi. And they loved it!

The Oxford was lifted off its knees around the late 1950s, being transformed into the original Plaza Club, with soft drinks only (you had to pop across to the Talbot to get a pint).

Top-liners of the time, like singer Marion Ryan and the Ray Ellington Quartet, performed there. Later, the Beatles and a host of other budding beat groups, some of them to attain stardom, followed on.

Legend has it that during a Beatles gig there, John Lennon (relaxing over an interval pint at the Talbot, now Sportsmans) was inspired to come up with a hit number, scribbling it on the back of a fag packet.

As a fully licenced nightspot, it underwent several name changes - Cindy's, Lowie's and, finally, the Plaza once more. What it's to be named next is anybody's guess, but whatever the choice, those old memories will still linger on