Vintage Mobile Cinema

On the 14th June Oliver Halls of the Vintage Mobile Cinema was very proud to receive an award from the Transport Trust for the restoration of the Bedford mobile cinema unit KJU 267E. In attendance was one time owner and president of the trust, Sir William McAlpine. The awards were presented by H.R.H Prince Michael of Kent in the Camden Roundhouse, London.

Neil Marshall, H.R.H Prince Michael of Kent, Oliver Halls, Sir William McAlpine

Vintage Mobile Cinema @ Pumphouse Gallery

The Vintage Mobile Cinema is just back from a very successful 3 day collaboration with the Pumphouse Gallery in Battersea Park, London and would like to thank all involved for being such great hosts and for inviting us to be part of the excellent Wandsworth Arts Festival.

The weather was unbelievable and the turnout impressive. It was a very exciting first visit for the cinema to the nation’s capital and we greatly look forward to returning to share the Vintage Mobile Cinema experience with many more people in the near future.

Local dignitaties Nick Harvey and Roy Lucas help launch the Movie Bus project.

With well over 200 people through the doors of the Vintage Mobile Cinema in just over 5 hours the Movie Bus project launch was a real and valid success. Twice hourly we screened the first of our 8 archive films documenting the history of North Devon, its culture and industry. This first installment ‘A Tale of Two Rivers’ explores the history of Taw and Torridge estuary.

A big thank you to all who attended and we hope many of you will be along time and again to see the other films in the series and continue to enjoy the unique Vintage Mobile Cinema experience in beautiful Devon.

Although the interior restoration is still undergoing the final touches before the launch we’ve decided to respond to the request for some interior photographs, to see even more recent images please go to the Vintage Mobile Cinema image gallery page.

Shortly preceding the publicity generated by our airtime on BBC1 on 1/03/10 we received an unexpected email from a Juliet Sanders whose late husband was once the transport manager for PERA – the company for responsible for operating the cinema units for the government. She holds a treasure trove of information and images of the units, something we’d previously wished and hoped still existed somewhere and here’s the first……….! This is conclusive proof that all seven existed as it had been previously suggested to me that only six actually got made, a stunning image. If only we could find another surviving one or just as good, one of the trailers.

All seven mobile cinemas in a line

It’s been over a month now since we picked up our tools following the respray of the cinema and although progress is definitely afoot, it’s very slow going.

At this stage of the project all of the tasks start overlapping and it becomes a 3D jigsaw of which one is never sure if all the pieces even exist! For example the electrics need to be in place before the environment is finished and knowing the electrical requirements involve buying the equipment, thousands of pounds worth. One then needs to consider finishing materials for the walls and floors according to both aesthetics and acoustic performance, whilst not forgetting we have a serious width restriction as regards seating. Before you can even lift a saw to begin work you have to plan the location of the equipment as mounting points for heavy objects like projectors need to be in place before any cladding goes up. I’m sure all of this is bread and butter to anyone in the building trade or a serious DIY enthusiast, but for me with our deadlines and relative inexperience its been a blood pressure raising time.

The floor of the theatre is now soundproofed with 2mm thick barrier matt, then insulated with 20mm of Celotex/Recticel and clad in 12mm ply. The extruded aluminium side walls are covered by 4mm ply, backed with the same 2mm barrier matt and painted with MDF primer on the face ready for covering – carpet? We’re not sure. Fingers crossed this will provide the basic level of soundproofing we need.

Presently the work is focused on the bulkhead and rear walls. The bulkhead has proved a challenge as the doorway needed enlarging for us to make a safe emergency exit – were people that much smaller in 1967?! The film reel cupboards, accessible from the cab, are also located on the bulkhead and have needed rebuilding due to a touch of woodworm and a slight dimension alteration to accommodate the modern AV equipment being installed.

With this phase nearly complete we’re already looking towards fabrication of the tiered seating frame and have just handed our upholsterers the restored wooden seat frames to cover in our chosen (fire retarded) fabric. While also, a local mould maker is nearing completion of the mould for the dome panels above the cab, which will promptly be sent off to Lancashire for 8 brand new acryllic panels to be drape formed and sent back to our workshop for installation.

Busy times, I just hope we can keep up the pace and try to conclude the restoration for springtime…….. For more images visit our interior rebuild gallery.

Wellington Timber

With the mobile cinema in Hills Body Works it was discovered the state of the wood in the driver’s door wasn’t as good as we’d hoped, and with our resident carpenter Hal unable to work, the repair looked ominous.

Rotten section of the driver's door

Thankfully our wood supplier Wellington Timber stepped up and agreed to cut and shape the central, structural piece of wood. This help combined with a talented worker at Hills saw the repair complete and the door refitted with a fresh, new aluminium skin.

Removing the old beading

For us this has long been a landmark occasion, keenly and anxiously awaited. However, the boys from National Mobile Windscreens came along and in 10 short minutes made childsplay of taking out the old screen.

The fibreglass repairs on the cab can now go ahead and once the new paint is on, National Mobile Windscreens can return with some brand new window rubber (complete with shiny silver beading) and refit the glass. We’ve recently learned that putting the glass back in is actually the hard part, so it’s fingers crossed in early November when they return.

Meanwhile they’ve taken the glass away, cleaned it up and have it safely stored in their workshop. All part of the service, excellent.

Mobile cinema at Hills

The cinema completed its long awaited 20 mile drive from the Blackdown Hills of East Devon to Exeter without a hitch on the 7th March, 2009, and now nestles inside the busy workshop at Hills Body Works. The journey was captured in full by the BBC cameras as part of the ongoing filming for a documentary to be screened in March 2010.

Skilled workers at Hills set to work immediately on the bodywork and within a matter of days had the doors all around the cinema looking straight, clean and ready for paint. In the weeks following, they moved onto rubbing down the paintwork, repairing the fiberglass damage to the cab and are now getting very close to applying the barrier coat used to stop the old 1970’s ‘apple green’ paint (applied in Sir William McAlpine’s ownership) reacting badly with the modern paint.

Spud working on metal shroud

The colour swatches have been chosen with great care, plus some debate, and we’ve settled on using a direct colour match for the main body of the vehicle (off-white/cream) and a blue stripe down the body (slightly darker and richer than the original sky blue). It’s only a matter of days now until the mobile cinema rolls out of the workshop looking every bit as good as it has in well over 35 years!

A sample piece of material for replacing the perspex dome has also been aquired and we’re hoping that fitting a complete new set of panels won’t be as hard or expensive as we’ve maintained it might be,  if this too is replaced by the time the cinema leaves Hills then the exterior of the unit will be as good as new. Fingers crossed.

A simple trip to the DVLA with all relevant papers saw us walk happily away as the proud owners of 12 months tax, gratis! Another landmark crossed on the journey to showing films – we’ll get there one day but it bodes to be a long winter of work.

Despite the lack of updates here we can assure you progress is still firmly ongoing with the restoration, we’ve just been too busy down at the workshop to find time to sit at a computer.

The woodwork is now almost complete, with only the central support beam in the drivers side cab door still to do, unfortunately this does involve a full strip down of the door. The 12v electrics are 90% up and running. The new tyres are fitted to the old rims which have a quick coat of black paint on them. Some rotten metalwork in and around the cab has been replaced. The interior of the cinema space has been gutted and awaits soundproofing.

Photos to follow soon……………..

Our big push towards the m.o.t test has moved a great deal closer this week with much of the preparatory work now completeted. The bulk of the work needed was carpentry and Hal has combined his efforts and skills with Jon to acheive a level of completion that puts us past most of the highly skilled tasks in hand, so what’s left is relatively simple work.

More photographs of the recent work can be seen in the M.O.T page in our ‘gallery’ section of the website. The series of photographs seen there take you through each stage of our recent developments, including the rebuild of a cab door, the rear corners of the body and an entire section of struts to support belly box doors and tin work.

V5 registration document cover

For almost exactly a year now we’ve been carefully trying to jump through all the neccessary hoops in order to reclaim the original registration number KJU 267E issued to the mobile cinema in 1967, and today the crisp, new V5 dropped through the mail box.

The history behind the vehicle effectively ‘dissapearing’ is simple. In the past all vehicles were licenced through local authorities and in a transition to the centralised ‘DVLA’ some time in the seventies, our vehicle missed out on the re-registration process. The then owners – The Transport Trust, had the vehicle safely in storage where it was most likely presumed to spend the rest of its days, hence no need to update its road papers.

Vehicle details

Without any written proof such as an old tax disc or M.O.T certificate, the mobile cinema was effectively out of existence when we purchased it in 2005. In this situation we  were advised to get a letter of provenance from each and every owner of the vehicle since new, along with an original photograph showing the registration number, accompanied by a current photograph and an inspection letter from a commercial mechanic.

Needless to say some of these tasks were easier than others but I’ll take this time to thank all of those involved with completing this process, as without any one of them we would never have reclaimed the number KJU 267E, which is such a fundamental part of a very important historic vehicle.

With help from all previous owners and some very kind historic vehicle enthusiasts we’re not far from taking a deep breath and taking the cinema for an extensive drive for the first time in over 35 years. First, we need to reclaim the licence plate from the DVLA, this was lost to the vehicle in the 1970’s when all vehicle records were centralised and KJU 267E was tucked up in storage with The Transport Trust and presumed never to need road papers again.

With this in mind I’d like to thank John Wakefield, The Right Honourable Tony Benn, Sir William McAlpine, Peter Rawlings, Rob & Nancy Howell and Mike Worthington-Williams. Each of these individuals has had an impact on the preservation of KJU and we look forward to sharing the cinema with many more people in the future.

The Vintage Mobile Cinema company is part of a partnership project including North Devon Council museums department, South West Film and TV Archive and the Bill Douglas centre that has successfully won a funding bid from South West Screens to operate the mobile cinema as part of a film heritage project throughout the South West in 2010.

The expected launch of these collaborative efforts is expected to be spring 2010, with the cinema touring local villages, schools and major cultural events.

The emphasis in film content is on local heritage and we aim to bring relevant historical film footage to the doorsteps of those to whom it matters most, the local people. To further develop the poignancy of the work we intend to offer people a chance to have their spoken feedback recorded, so creating a dialogue between film and viewer which can later be added to the film. This is intended as an ongoing piece that will evolve with time as more commentary is added.

The inclusion of schools and colleges will bring fresh work into the mix, allowing for historical film preservation to play a part in education and inspiration for budding new talent to express itself locally.