Leisure Play

Les Howarth, Sales
Director of Tornado Model
Products Ltd., firmly believes
that the entertainment
industry is in a person's
blood or it isn't. There are no
half measures. Les certainly
has the business coursing
through his veins and has
worked long hours helping to
provide entertainment for
almost as long as he can
remember.
He started in the cinema
business even before he left
school, having been born in
that Mecca of entertainment
- Blackpool. Apart from two
years spent working in a
Lancashire brickyard Les
has devoted his life to four
forms of entertainment -
cinema, bingo, amusement
equipment and coin operated
remote controlled leisure
equipment. Apart from his
Tornado role he heads Eagle
Entertainments and a bingo
hall business.
As a boy Les used to
accompany his father around
the village halls with a
mobile cinema kit stowed in
the back of a van. His job was
to put out the seats and roll
up the 9d and one shilling
tickets. He was also ex-
pected to keep an eye on the
projector.
During the Blackpool
season he used to help in the
Hall of Mirrors and Ghost
Train, receiving 3d for his
efforts in the Hall of Mirrors
and twice that amount for the
Ghost Train! Before that he
worked with the donkey rides
on the beach and helped to
stable them near his home.
In 1955 his father took
over a small cinema in Great
Harwood, near Blackburn,
and young Les found himself
working as a projectionist six
nights a week and Saturday
afternoons.
"There were four double
features a week, " said Les,
"with five or six reels to a
film and two shows nightly.
We never finished before 11
p.m. But that's what I mean
when I say the entertain-
ment business is in your
Page Eight
LES HOWARTH - who recently received the Indi-
vidual Award for Services to exports from the
International Export Association.
" I met a lot of genuine
people while I was working in
the brickyard. I still have
friends I first met there and
the best man at my wedding
was a friend from the
brickyard days. They were
hard but happy days and I
wouldn't have missed them
for anything. "
Les returned to the cinema
in 1964 but by this time the
!lilver screen industry was in
rapid decline. Cinemas were
closing almost monthly and
Les advocated a switch to
bingo. But his father wanted
to stay in the cinema - it
was his whole way of life.
Les said: " I moved to the
Carlton in Preston and
started to build up a bingo
club. In those days I turned a
hand to evElrything. I had a
part time manager but I used
to do everything, including
the calling. But within six
months we had got the
attendance up to 500 a night.
Twelve months after opening
at Preston I leased a small
club at Haslingden, near
Blackburn, and later bought
it."
• Les Howarth at the door of the house in Blackpool where he was
born ....
blood or it isn't. If you're
born to it, hours don't matter.
Certain people can do it and
others can't. "
Les left school at 15 and
went to work in the cinema,
the
Grand.
Shortly
afterwards his father took
over the Carlton, Preston and
the Palladium, Oswald-
twistle.
These were the days when
the cinema was still a boom
industry. Les said: "After a
Saturday matinee it would
take an hour or more to put
all the 'Reserved' tags on the
seats for the evening
showing. "
In 1962 Les left the
comparative comfort of the
cinema for a tough, bleak
Lancashire brickyard. He
was employed as a loader
and emptier which meant he
had to empty bricks from the
kilns and load them onto
lorries. For this he received
£14 a week. "We emptied
seven kilns a week," said
Les, " and there were 42,000
bricks in each kiln. That was
7s 6d per thousand between
six of us. We made up the
money by loading up the
wagons which averaged 3 to
4,000 bricks a load. The flat
rate was £5 ! I was at the
brickyard right through the
terrible winter of 1962/63.
We clocked on at 7.30 a.m.
and the first thing we had to
do was knock the ice off the
bricks. During the two years I
was at the brickyard I never
had a cold or had a day off
through sickness. We used to
get soaked to the skin and
freezing cold but I think I was
healthier then than I ever
was before or have been
since. It was a case of no
work. no pay.
By 1974 Les felt it was
time to diversify and he
bought a steel-framed, four-
lane Astroglide which he
towed over to the East coast
only to run into difficulties
over planning permission.
After several frantic 'phone
calls Les learned that a man
in Shanklin, Isle of Wight
was interested. But when Les
arrived, having towed the
Astroglide all the way from
Skegness the man decided he
didn't want it after all. "But I
managed to talk him round, "
said Les, "and mine became
the first Astroglide to be
installed on a pier. But not
before we encountered
another hitch. We couldn't
hire a crane to get it on the
pier and Ivan Bennett of
Ilkeston, an old friend, had to
devise a hand-winch system.
The gang of men we hired for
the job had to sleep on the
pier for the first night as it
was the middl~ of season and
Leisure Play - November