SUNDAY CINEMAS VERSUS CHURCH

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5306, 20 January 1947, Page 3

SUNDAY CINEMAS VERSUS CHURCH

"CHOIRS INTO TROUPES OF LOSCIOOS BLONDFS?" "What do they expect the Church td do ? " asked an English vicar recently, expressing his annoyance with people who say that if the Clmrch brightens its services it need not worry about Stiiiday clrtemas, "Do they expect us to turn our Choirs into troupes of luscious bieftdes?" asked' the vicar. "And are 0Ui* vicars to be Fathers O'Malley (of the Bing Crosby fllms) and croon cur congregations to sleep? "Our churches are all right," went on the vicar, the Rev. P. L. D. Chatterton; Hall Green, 'Birmingham, who was one of a deputation of 20 clergymen appealing to Birmingham Licensing Justices to reverfc to later hours for the opening of Sunday cinemas.' "Children who attend our Sujiday schools must be able to concentrate. We challenge their lives. How often does the cinema? "We see a boy and girl as a boy and girl to be guided. The cinema trade see them as Jack and Jill with so many shillings in their pockets." The vicar said parents waited outside Sunday schools to whisk their children away to the cinemas. "Most of the children have their last meal at 2 p.m. 'They are taken off to the pictures whether they want to go or not, and get their next meal at nine o'elock," he said. T'he Rev. Noel Hutchcroft, the city's Free Church leader, said that "responsible observei's" .reported that at 11 . cinemas 2700 children under 10 were present one Sunday. Mr. Ernest Haynes, president of Birmingham's Trade Council, said that the 150,000 workers he represented asked that no alteration in the hours shonld- be made. "This form of entertainment plays a vital part in the lives of our people," he declared.