Sad to see the Palladium looking derelict. As an exile of 47 years my image of Oswaldtwistle/Accrington is in a time-warp and I see the Palladium, in my mind's eye, as a cinema that's beginning to lose out to television but still attracts an audience and still looks quite smart.
I saw "Rock Around the Clock" there (nobody ripped up any seats) and wept my way through "Carousel" (oh....when Gordon McRae died and they sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" to his widow. Eat your heart out Gerry Marsden). I watched Errol Flynn fight the Sheriff of Nottingham and rode the range with Roy Rodgers. I also got off the 267 Ribble bus there from 1948 to 1959, going to St Mary's and then Paddock House.
I see Union Rd as full of thriving shops, Church train station looking just as it had when my mother lived there, the Urban District Council offices at Church Commercial, all soot-blackened and busy, with that fascinating curved wall.
I sometimes went to the Palace where the manager used to creep around the auditorium looking for courting couples "up to no good". If he found one doing something he disapproved of (God alone knows what) he would grab the male by the collar and forcibly eject him on to the pavement outside; such a guardian of public morality.
