WITH turn-outs slumped below 20 per cent in some wards last time and town hall chiefs driven this year to set up shopping-centre polling stations on a Saturday to tempt the hugely-indifferent voters to participate in the municipal elections, it is hard to imagine local polls once being capable of firing up passions so much that ballot boxes bulged, public meetings were both packed and heated and crowds thronged the streets until late at night waiting for the results.
Yet, all of that happened here in East Lancashire not so long ago -- and all over whether people could go to the pictures on a Sunday night.
It was a controversy that flared repeatedly in town after town during the 1940s and 50s -- as the issue threatened to put the first firecracker under the previously strict and dour British Sunday when almost every shop was shut, no games were played, pub opening hours were minimal and pleasure was frowned up on and even hanging out washing to dry was regarded as scandalous.
Feniscowles reader Bill Officer, now in his late seventies, tells what those Sundays were like when he was growing up. "Even the folk who didn't go to church showed a lot of respect for what was then a special day," he says.
"Lawn-mowers and other gardening equipment remained in the shed and such DIY as was practised in those days was restricted to indoor activity. If you went into Blackburn on a Sunday morning, the only people you were likely to see were those going to church. "All shops and public buildings were closed and there was no sign of any commercial activity. A familiar sight to all Blackburnians in those days was the white-coated policeman on point duty at the top of Church Street, but on a Sunday morning even he was missing. The day was devoid of all forms of entertainment as all cinemas and theatres were closed."
What rocked this religion-led solemnness was the passing of the Sunday Entertainments Act of 1932 which said that if a poll of electors declared in favour of Sunday opening in cinemas, the local authority could then ask the Home Office for power to grant licences for Sunday performances.
But there were provisos -- Cinema staff had to be guaranteed a day off during the week and part of the cinemas' profits had to go to charity. And councils could also attach other conditions if they wanted.
Among the first in East Lancashire to come under pressure for Sunday pictures was Blackburn, but time and again during the war years the council's Watch Committee refused the notion -- and church leaders were delighted.
"We feel the frustration of such attempts up to the present has been in answer to prayer on behalf of those who desire the well-being of our town," said a letter from the Particular Baptist Chapel in Islington calling on the council to oppose "such desecration of the Lord's day" in response to a renewed bid in 1944 for Sunday films.
By contrast, in a heated Town Council debate, one member in in favour argued that Sunday cinema would stop a lot of the "gallivanting about" in the streets, shop doorways and Corporation Park.
It was not until 1946 that Blackburn's voters got their say in a referendum -- one that followed a crowded statutory public meeting at King George's Hall where speakers for and against braved boos and catcalls. Among the clergy who were opposed, the Rev. P.F. Bateson, of All Saints Church, claimed it was "not good for a child to stare through warm scented darkness at exaggerated scenes of passion and violence." And the 'antis' won. At the public meeting, only 200 out of the 3,000 voted for Sunday cinema and in the plebiscite that followed, a majority of 2,457 out of the 37,895 who voted were against. The turn-out of 44 per cent was reported to be one of the highest ever recorded in such a contest -- perhaps a consequence of the intensive rival campaigns waged by the Sunday Cinemas Association and the United Anglican and Free Churches.
Said the old Blackburn Times: "Hoardings have been liberally plastered with appeals, some of the posters being the largest since pre-war days, loudspeaker cars have constantly toured the streets and some 200,000 circulars and handbills have been distributed."
Eight years later, a new referendum reversed the decision by almost two votes to one -- on a 41 per cent turn-out -- with the result being cheered by a large crowd standing in the rain outside the Public Halls where the count took place. Cinema owners hired coaches to take voters to polling stations and among their backers knocking on doors urging people to vote was ex-England goalkeeper Frank Swift.
But when Sunday showings began in January, 1955, only seven of the town's 14 cinemas ran them. Among the conditions was a ban on 'X' films -- which wasn't lifted for ten years.
At the same time as the Blackburn referendum, 43 per cent of voters in Colne, which had two cinemas, opted by a 2,871 majority in the town's plebiscite for Sunday films. The Rev R.W.L. Huggins, of Colne Council of Churches, complained about an unfair fight. "The matter has been decided not by the vote of the most responsible section, but by a minority with all the power of big business --motor coaches, cars, loudspeakers and the like -- behind them," he said.
When Burnley's voters put the issue to the test in January, 1948, and decided by more than 11,000 votes for Sunday cinema -- in the wake of a strong advertising campaign by owners -- a huge 47 per cent of them took part, though the old Northern Daily Telegraph said the turn-out had been kept down because of the poor weather on polling day.
The same year, Nelson folk voted 'No' and did not change their minds until 1960, the same year that Todmorden voters said 'Yes' while those at Clitheroe rejected Sunday cinema. Rawtenstall voted in the change the following year.
But in 1959 as Rishton folk voted against, those at Bacup were for by a majority of 1,417 on a turn-out of 36.4 per cent that was said to be twice the national average and at the end of what this newspaper described as "weeks of campaigning which had overshadowed even the General Election."
The result was cheered by a crowd of several hundred outside the town's Mechanics' Hall. But the Rev D.C. Downham, of the Churches' Action Committee, claimed it had been a dirty fight with churchmen being shouted down at the preliminary public meeting, clergy and their loudspeaker cars being openly booed in the streets and "Vote Against" posters being torn up and defaced in all parts of the town while windows at the homes of two anti-Sunday cinema supporters had been smashed. And as patrons of Bacup's two cinemas looked forward to Sunday-night shows, Mr Downham issued an X-rated declaration. "As far as the church is concerned, we now know where we stand. We do not regard ourselves now so much as the church in a religious town, but as a mission in a pagan town," he said.
The town's magistrates later refused a request for Sunday showings to begin at 4pm, allowing films to start only from 7.30 pm -- so that church attendances were not affected. And the first Sunday film shown at the town's Regal Cinema was..."Sign of the Pagan."
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