This photo, from the archives of Mike and Hilary Wreford, is from 1925 of the Okehampton Picture Palace that opened ten years before.

The cinema was built by Blatchford and Dawe adapting premises previously occupied by Cornish’s the drapers.

Pictured are, left to right, G Robinson resplendent in his commissionaire’s uniform, who doubled as a chmney sweep during the day.

Also in the picture is Alice Medland, Frank Petherick (sitting, projectionist), boy usher, unkown, Mrs Williams, Miss Higgins (pianist), Reg Cullington (chocolate boy, nicknamed Buttons), Sally Holmes who was the next pianist and became known as the ‘bird of paradise’.

It was initially leased to an Exeter cinema from (Peters) who owned a cinema blitzed during the war, then subsequently owned by Simeon Newcombe. The name was changed to the ‘Premier Cinema’ with the advent of talking pictures. As the television nework spread, business declined and it became a supermarket, then a nightclub (Nero’s) and is now Toast Coffee House.

If anyone has any memories of the cinema, which closed in 1963, please let us know at the Times at [email protected]