Cinemas

Left: The open-air camp cinema at Bir Fukum near Little Aden

R.A.F. Khormaksar's open-air Astra Cinema had walls of pinky/red with large ventilation holes to allow the breeze to pass through. For first-timers to the cinema it was at first a novelty to look up and see the stars, as there was no roof, but it became an annoyance when the noise from aircraft taking off, in reverse thrust, or going around, would drown out the movie soundtrack.

The shortcomings of the open-air design would be further increased when in 1965 the risk of a grenade being thrown over the wall into the cinema was too great to enable it to continue in operation. Arrangements were quickly made to screen future films at Khormaksar School where films of the era were Zulu, Dr. No, El Cid and The Battle of Britain.

Manager of the Astra at Khormaksar between 1953-1954 was Tony Day.

The open-air Astra cinema at RAF Khormaksar c1963

"Do you remember how some of the locals used to cram themselves into the ventilation holes in the walls at the Astra so that they could watch the movie 'baksheesh' [free]? ." Michael Downs

Astra Cinema in Khormaksar 1954

Other cinemas:

• New Cinema
• Church of England Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's Institute (CESSAI), Steamer Point

• Hurricane Cinema, Crater

• Orient Cinema, Sheikh Othman

• New Cinema, Tawahi

• Liberty Cinema, Maalla
• Ashaab, Sheikh Othman
• Astra, Tawahi
• Bilqis, Holkat Road, Crater
• Bureika, Little Aden
• Liberty, Maalla
• National, Crater
• Pravin Talkies, Crater
• Crescent Hotel rooftop
   

The Open Air Cinema (The Bureika) at Little Aden c1965. It was bordered on two sides by roads - one to Aden the other an access road to married quarters. It was the subject of an attack by hand grenade on at least one occasion. Opposite across the Aden Road was a group of shops including a families NAAFI shop and a branch of Coswajee Dinshaws.

Click here to read about the  Regal Cinema

I was stationed at Steamer Point from 1960 to 1962 and worked every evening at the Astra cinema. The following is part of my recollections of that time - "And nobody even noticed!" (the rest is on my website)

The only redeeming factor with my particular posting was that the personnel of the workshops of the MU had at some time “collared” the running of the Astra cinema near the harbour every evening, as a part time unpaid job. I was in the fortunate position of taking over one of these coveted jobs from a colleague about to leave after 2 years. The cinema itself was situated very close to the harbour, and had no roof at all. As far as I recall it didn’t rain once during my 2 years, but the floor was kept free of sand being blown in, by our sweeper every morning. The seats were wicker chairs and most people brought there own cushion. Sometimes it was difficult to hear the soundtrack because of the wind and occasionally a ship would sound its horn during a particularly critical part of the film. Before the plum job of projectionist every evening at the cinema you had to serve an “apprenticeship”, which was the job of “usher”.

This consisted of sitting in the ticket office for 2 hours every afternoon and then checking tickets at the door at opening time. There were many “regulars” who bought a ticket and then asked what film was showing afterwards.

After a year and a rotation of jobs due to others leaving I spent the following year as a projectionist. We were always 2 on duty every evening, and we received the reels of film from I think it was Astra, Akrotiri (Cyprus) and we had to show them for about 2 or 3 days before sending them on to, in our case the Astra at Khormaksar (also Aden). The reels were first checked for broken film and if necessary re-spliced ready for the evening’s performance. There were advertisements in the form of slides that were shown first, and now and again we had to stop the film with e.g. “Will all blood donors with O rhesus negative report to the hospital immediately”. The number of reels was usually 6 to 7 depending on the length of the film and our most important task was to ensure the changeover went as smoothly as possible. Just before the end of the reel the other projector had to be started, and then wait for the little yellow circle in the top right hand corner to appear before changing over as smoothly as possible.

Other than that it was pretty routine in between, with only utter panic if both were outside engrossed in the film and hadn’t noticed that the take-up reel was not correctly mounted resulting in the projection room floor covered in film. Now and again there was film that broke, and had to be re-spliced, accompanied by hissing and booing from the occupants of the wicker chairs in the meantime.

Now to the point of my story, one evening on the first showing of as far as I remember, a very boring American film consisting of 6 reels and although these were clearly marked somehow we mixed them up, and the sequence finished up as 1, 2, 3, 5, 4 and 6! As more often than not, the “house” was pretty full up and you would have thought that there was an outcry and people wanted their money back having not been able to follow the film – not in the least – nobody had noticed at all! The following night they were shown in the correct sequence!

Thanks to the Astra - it helped me through my 2 years in Aden.

Philip Markham