B&W memories

A regular if infrequent feature of life at Craigflower, my prep school, was the showing of a film.  The stacking chairs, metal tube frames with canvas seats and backs usually fraying at one or more corners, were set out, the projector was spooled up, and the shutters closed.  The films were all black and white, with the most evocative opening effects, as the numbers counted down and the Rank gong-beater or the Gainsborough lady appeared to usher in the main feature. These were predominantly WW2 tales of heroism - Ill Met By Moonlight, Appointment With Venus, Reach For The Sky, The Wooden Horse, and so on - with such suitable male role models as Kenneth More and Dirk Bogarde (well, who knew?).  There was a sprinkling of Ealing comedies - The Lavender Hill Mob, Passport To Pimlico - and other upright fare - A Night To Remember and A Kid For Two Farthings. The last of these made me sob for hours, and many films make me cry to this day.  

The joy of these sessions was partly the escape from the reality of school for a couple of hours, and also the chance to dip a finger-tip into a smuggled-in tin of Cremola foam crystals.  This was a sugary powder which when mixed with water made a completely delicious fizzy fruit-flavoured drink of very synthetic taste and colour.  But for the best effect, it was consumed straight from an indelibly stained finger under the cover of flickering darkness, as the passengers clung to the lifeboats and the band played Abide With Me.