THE curtain has been lifted on the golden age of cinema in the Forest, from its earliest silent days at the start of the last century to the swinging 60s.

Roly and Trish Jones from Lydney have written Vurresters at The Flicks, following on from their previous book A Richer Seam Than Coal: The Dance Hall Days about the district’s connection with the dance bands.

Roly said: “I have always been interested in local history, and now we’ve turned our attention to the history of local cinemas, covering the first half century from the founding of the first picture houses in the silent era.

“Coleford’s Dean Cinema, now known as the Studio, was built as a drill hall in 1906 for the local volunteers, and became a picture house shortly afterwards run by the Reeves family, and could be the oldest in the district.

“Cinderford’s Palace was founded around 1910, and Lydney Picture House next to the old high street railway line around 1913, and the book includes lots of archive pictures, including posters highlighting the favourite films of the day attended by the folks of the Forest.”

Lydney was launched with a screening of an epic production of Ivanhoe filmed at nearby Chepstow Castle, the first overseas Hollywood production.

“The picture houses also showed news reels of course, and if there was a disaster or appeal, the cinemas would be a focus of fundraising. Cinderford was a big supporter of the miners in the 1926 General Strike,” added Roly.

“Coleford was the sole survivor in 1966 when the Palace shut, but thankfully we now have two full-time cinemas again after the Palace reopened in 2000,” he said.

Roly and Trish scou-red the archives of the Forester for information about the region’s golden age of pictures, and uncovered the story of the ‘Forest’s No 1 film fan’, a cafe owner and businessman who met many celebs and invited several to visit the Forest.

“Norman Sterrett met the likes of Mary Pickford, Patricia Rock, George Raft, boxer Jack Dempsey, and showed stars like film actor and studio executive Ben Lyon, US actress Bebe Daniels and Laurel and Hardy’s manager Hal Roach around the Forest in in an open top car. He also brought Tommy Steele to see Symonds Yat, with US rock ’n’ roller Freddie Bell.”

Other tales revealed in the 298-page book are the use of cinemas as recruitment centres at the start of the First World War and for beauty pageants, the local hero of epic film The Raid on Zeebrugge which did the rounds, and a saucy limerick competition with links to local poet FW Harvey.

Former builder Roly added: “My English teacher at school said it was his ambition to write a book and that put an idea in my head which stuck.

“So when I got a computer I started to write.”

The book is published by Rogee Publishing of Lydney and printed by the town’s Graphics Shack Ltd. Anyone wanting to buy a copy can call the authors on 01594 841115.