Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Working in Colchester

One of the towns where I worked briefly during my early career was Colchester, the fabulously historic Essex town which is the oldest in Britain.

It was while I was an Assistant Manager working for the Rank Organisation. Before I was appointed as Manager of my first cinema (the Odeon Whalebone Lane in Dagenham), I had to frequently go out on relief.

This meant being in temporary charge of a cinema while the manager was on days off, or on holiday, or off sick, for example.

I just had a couple of days once in charge of the Odeon Colchester. This used to be in Crouch Street, but has now moved into Head Street, in the building that was formerly the town`s main Post Office.

I did go there on one other occasion, to work on a live show. I used to work on most of these that Rank put on in Essex. They would call me in as I had special skills involving crowd control, and anyway I used to enjoy seeing the performers. The show that I worked on at Colchester featured the Animals, the group from the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area that featured Eric Burdon as lead singer.

Years later, my eldest daughter Theresa`s partner Daniel was Chief Projectionist there.

If anybody reading this has any connections with Colchester (Born? Lived? Worked? Relatives? Ancestors?), I will be very pleased to hear from them.