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| "There had never been much attempt at grandeur in its architecture, and the entrance was hardly wider than the average shopfront." James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small |
In the waning chapters of All Creatures Great and Small,
James Herriot writes about his courtship with Helen Alderson. Their first date was suggested by his
coworker Tristan: a dinner and dance at the Reniston
Hotel outside town. On the drive there, his old,
beat-up Austin 7 gets a flat tire. While changing it, his shoes get soaked
in a puddle. At her insistence, they return to her home and he borrows her father’s shoes. When they finally arrive at the elegant and
upscale Reniston, he learns that no dance is scheduled for the evening. All in all, he views their first date as a
disaster.
Yet a visit from Helen gives him hope. She brings Dan, the family dog, to Skeldale
House, and assists him in fixing the dog’s dislocated hip. Afterward, Mrs. Hall brings out tea and
biscuits (cookies), and this time, as they sit and talk, he feels none of the
awkwardness he did at the expensive hotel. That night, when he calls to follow up on
Dan’s condition, he summons courage and suggests a second date, this time at
the local cinema.
The evening of their date, Tristan asks if he’s really
taking Helen to the pictures. James asks
“Why not?” Tristan says that he would
have suggested something more enterprising.
James “gave a bitter laugh,” and reminds Tristan of the Reniston
disaster. This time he’s looking for a
safer option. Tristan agrees: nothing
could be safer than The Plaza.
James arrives outside the cinema ten minutes early. Not willing to risk having another flat tire,
or some mechanical difficulty with his old Austin, he’s asked Helen to meet him
there. He stares at the plain-looking
cinema tucked in between the ironmonger’s and the chemist’s shop. The lights are off, the doors closed. Is The Plaza even open tonight? Yet a few groups of people stand nearby, and
he notices “a bunch of small boys rolling and fighting on the pavement.” Might this second date prove a disaster equal
to their first? Then he spots Helen, and
she offers him a wide smile and a cheerful wave. Suddenly, he feels sure that everything will
be all right.
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| Why are we seeing a movie about Yemen on our trip to England? |
I’m not sure why I fixated on spending an evening at Ritz
Cinema, the movie theater Alf Wight (James Herriot) called The Plaza. Nor am I sure why, each day of our stay in
Thirsk, I put off going. I think what
initially gave me the idea was how the story leaps off the page in the
book. It also helped that the cinema has
received minimal upgrades over the years.
Had it been transformed into a modern multiplex, for example, I would
not have bothered. Yet I was afraid of being disappointed, of attending and
feeling no closeness to James, Helen, or the events of their second evening
together. Nor did the movie, “Salmon
Fishing in Yemen,” sound like our usual cup of tea. Finally, I tend to be an early-to-bed,
early-to-rise person these days. After a
full day of exploring Herriot Country, why should we leave our pleasant, little
hotel and risk being disappointed?
The idea of visiting Ritz Cinema, and experiencing that
Herriot connection, however, had taken hold in my wife. In the end, it was she who got us out to Thirsk
that last evening. As we approached the
cinema, I could see that Herriot was right: the Ritz was a small, unimposing
structure. We arrived early, and as in
the book, the doors were closed, no line had yet formed, and only a few people
waited outside. Yet my wife smiled easily,
and her conversation sounded upbeat. I vowed
that, regardless of what happened, I would enjoy our evening at Ritz Cinema.
Waiting for the doors to open,
Dragon Dave
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