Where once there were a surprisingly large number of grand theatres showing the lastest film releases, there now stands flats, factories and a bingo hall.

Bel Austin recalls the heydays of cinema on the Isle of Sheppey.

Few under the age of 35 have seen a film in a Sheppey cinema.

They may well have been inside the buildings to play bingo, work on an assembly line, play pool or have fun in a nightclub, but films? No.

While The Criterion at Blue Town does showings, the last of the traditional picture houses – Images, formerly The Ritz – closed on November 9, 1985.

At the end, even Bond blockbuster A View to Kill attracted only 36 people.

After suffering losses of more than £25,000 to keep the cinema going, owners Ray and Jan Sutton admitted defeat.

How different it had been for the older generation who, as often as three days a week, lost themselves in a make-believe celluloid world.

For as little a shilling (5p) they could watch the silver screen through a haze of cigarette smoke and make a dash for the exit before standing for the National Anthem.

For the children, Saturday morning matinees were unmissable. They let off steam booing or cheering as the action played out and lifted the roof with raucous “yucks” when a couple kissed.

They flicked cherry stones at the clock, let their mates in for free via the toilets and banged seats and shouted “put a tanner in” if the film broke down.

I write without exaggeration, as one of the jobs I did to eke out meagre pay as a cub reporter was to assist in the projection box in the Argosy.

To this day while watching old films on TV I look out for three dots on the top-right hand corner, indicating a change of scene and a reel change.

When those dots flashed in rapid succession things got lively in the box.

Films had been shown on Sheppey since 1911 in the Electric Theatre, nicknamed Tower Hall, in Sheerness High Street; Sheerness Arcadia, also in the High Street; and later in The Oxford in Russell Street; the Hippodrome, in Broadway; and The Ace at Queenborough.

Even Leysdown had regular picture shows in the summer season in the now long gone Beach Hall.

But it is the Argosy, Rio and Ritz which are regarded as the Island's real cinema gems. The first is now a bingo hall and blocks of flats stand on the sites of the other two.

One picture of the Rio, taken in 1990 from its balcony, shows it in its death throes. But the last films were shown there in 1958.

Stripped of its grandeur, the building became a small parts packaging company for Thorns Electricals and later the Lilliput typewriter factory.

The town was rightly proud of the Rio, or the R Ten (R 10) as some called it.

So much more than a 1,600-seat cinema, it also boasted a circular tearoom where soft background music was in harmony with the tinkle of silver teaspoons against the bone china.

There was also provision for a dance floor. A first date who treated his lady to tea, a seat in the circle and ice cream in the interval, was much envied.

Those were the days when people actually dressed up to go to the "pictures", never the movies or the flicks. No matter how often you went it was still an occasion.

Its closure was mourned – there was even a half-hearted fight to save it – but there was still the Ritz, smaller but equally posh.

Real cinema buffs were unimpressed by home entertainment on rented televisions. It wasn't the same. How many of the then under-14s will admit to hanging around the steps of the Ritz asking complete strangers to take them in to see an A-certificate film?

Times change. Going to the pictures used to be a cheap family outing. Now it costs a fortune in a multiplex miles out of town.

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