When the cinema finished, then it was turned into a general hall where they used to hold
dances, you could hire private parties, trade shows, exhibitions.
We had to maintain the place and we had a very good caretaker, a chap called John Ashby,
anything that he wanted done, he would give me a shout because I was in an office just
above him.
And right next to the main hall was an annex and the annex was the same length as the city
hall, not quite so wide and that was separated by a folding wooden screen and that's where
they used to hold a lot of the shows like the fur and feather and fat stock shows.
It was used quite a bit in the city hall annex.
The fat stock show was the best of the breed really.
It was very popular, you see a lot of people in to see these animals.
On the side wall of the annex, there were these big iron rings about six inches around
and when they started having the fat stock show, they fixed them in so that the bullocks
that came in, they were tied to these, there was about six of them along the wall because
they used to get a little bit excited sometimes.
The floor was timber, grooving tongue, about an inch and a quarter thick but being there
for numerous decades, the boards were worn away to about half an inch and as time went
on, they would go through the floor.
Of course, when it fell through the floor, we had to make some hasty repairs to make
it safer.
They used to unload the cattle outside what is now the stage door for the Hoffa Cornwall
which was then the door which led into the annex and there was a corridor leading up
to where the kitchen was and then the annex started and one day, there was chaps fitting
these metal pens together for the animals to go in and this farmer was leading the
bullock, he got him off the cattle truck leading him up the corridor and suddenly one of the
metal frames fell over onto the other one, made a big bang, it was a pretty noise which
frightened this bullock and the bullock then didn't fancy coming into the hall so it started
to back up down the corridor and the farmer was holding this rope trying to stop it.
Well, of course, you get a bullock, he could pull a dozen farmers, no problem at all and
the farmer was in a position like someone water skiing with his knees bent trying to
hold this bullock being dragged backwards and of course, the bullock was shaking, frightened
naturally and he bashed through a door which was a cupboard, a store cupboard so that was
another job for us to do, you know, a new door to repair.
Another occasion, they brought a bullock out of the truck to come in and it got a bit frightened,
something spooked him and he broke away and outside, what is now the piazza, used to
be the lemon key car park.
Well, he got in there and it damaged a few cars, knocking windmills off as it was trotting
around, a bit scared, they finally caught him and calmed him down and got him back but
he wouldn't go into the city hall.
Every time that we had a fat stock show you knew there was going to be something happening
or you expected it, you know.
