Ten enterprising townsmen who planked down £150 each started Burton Latimer’s cinema.  Their wives and daughters used to take turns in the paybox and help to sell chocolates.

That was way back in the 1914-18 war, in the days of silent films.

Attached to the cinema which the shareholders built was a lawn, a café and a billiards room.  Burton was none too lively in those days long before easy bus travel to cinemas elsewhere, and the new “pictures” were a sensation.

Mr O Tailby, who was secretary and manager, was allowed only £4 a week to hire the best pictures he could get for the money.

But Burton was on the map, and film companies sent travellers to invite the Electric Palace management to trade shows. 

There were some exciting times.  Once the management, greatly daring, hired “A Lancashire Lass” for a week for £75 – but somehow the film arrived at Rugby instead of Kettering.

With an expectant audience already queuing, a fast (for those days) car was sent to Rugby to fetch it – and returned with the film in time to show it.

Then there was a further snag – because the operator had not had time to run the film through, it kept breaking amid groans and whistles from the audience.  But they were exciting times and when in 1924, with talkies on the horizon, the little company sold out to Watts Cinemas, they did so with some regrets.  Running the Electric Palace had been great fun.