Christmas countdown: Revisiting 1966 and the James Bond "Thunderball" movie in 2024

Like most blokes I like to keep in contact with my old friends usually for a quick pint and to talk about the old days. Although we all used to meet up regularly back in the day, we all now only manage to meet-up a few times a year, so our meetings are usually planned well in advance. This particular meet-up was originally arranged for June but was cancelled due to a health issue on my part. As a result the guys rescheduled the meeting for early December (as our Christmas night out) in my old home town where I stayed from 1960 -to the early 1970s in a pub that used to be an old cinema. As it turned out this was the cinema that I watched the then new James Bond release "Thunderball" as a 5 or 6 year old in with my mum. Although I expected to see the revamped pub retain some of the old cinema’s format I was (pleasantly) shocked to see that the pub chain (Wetherspoons) had retained so much of the original Savoy cinema as can be seen below.

Above the upper viewing deck of the old Savoy cinema where I think my mum and myself watched "Thunderball" . Below the view showing the new bar where the lower seating area, toilets and concession stall used to be. I also took a picture of the entrance area but deleted that in error.

This visit really was a bit like time travel for me as it all seemed so familiar and brought back many long lost memories of that time. Below is the original front of the old cinema that closed not long after I saw this movie.

It was realy strange to think that all those years ago my mum and myself visited this place to watch a movie, we may even have stood at the bar area in 1965/6 to buy some sweets before the film started.

Favourite toys: James Bond attaché case

It’s strange how some long forgotten memory can pop into your head by the simplest prompts. One such event happened to myself last week when visiting Glasgow to meet up with a few old pals for our 6 weekly guys night out. As is my normal practice I arrived a couple of hours before we were due to meet so that I could have a look around the shops. On this day as I entered the city streets from the rail station I was greeted by a large window display advertising the new James Bond film “ No Time to Die” then as I turned the corner I saw the sad vision of the now closed Glasgow Debenhams store. In the blink of an eye those 2 associated events transported me back to around April 1966 when my mum and dad took me to Glasgow to visits the large Lewis’s department store (pictured below from around 1970) which stood on the location of the now closed Debenhams store, so that I could choose my birthday present. Like many of the other Lewis’s stores throughout the UK it was a stunning looking store that sold everything from delicatessen food to records to the latest London fashions and of course it had a massive floor dedicated to children’s toys. My main memory of that day was the fact that I had so much money (I think it was about £10) to spend and with having so much I asked my parents if I could purchase the above James Bond 007 attaché case, a major purchase for a 6 year old kid at that time.

Released in 1965 by MPC and based on the attaché case seen in the 1963 Bond file “From Russia With Love” the toy case included a Luger pistol, complete with a shoulder stock, viewing scope and silencer which converted it into a rifle, a ’Code-o-Matic’ code machine, code book and pencil, wallet with paper money, James Bond 007 business cards, a passport, and twelve red plastic bullets. The case itself also had a few tricks such as a hidden black plastic dagger concealed in the side, a mechanism which would fire one of the plastic bullets from the case itself, and a lock which could be set to “explode” (by firing a cap) if the case is opened incorrectly. From memory I also spent some of my birthday money on a couple of Timpo Knights.

My interest in James Bond at this time was ignited by seeing “Thunderball “ at the movies with my parents and brother so I’m not sure if the attaché case was my first Bond related toy as like many other kids of my age I had the iconic Corgi Aston-Martin DB5 which was released in October 1965. As my version was the gold coloured car (as opposed to the silver one seen on screen in the previous year’s Goldfinger) this may well have been my first Bond purchase.

Despite being fortunate enough to have had the above 2 iconic Bond toys, my favourite from the franchise was the Thuderball scuba diver set that I bought in Woolworths around 1967. Although my interest in James Bond is only in the films (usually bought on DVD) it’s good to see that Bond, unlike Lewis’s and Debenhams, has remained a constant beacon of familiarity in an ever changing world.