Having read your article about the old Regal/Odeon in Colchester and its possible demolition (Gazette, January 6), I saw there is a film made during its construction on the East Anglian Film Achive website, eafa.org.uk.

The film shows mainly the steelwork being erected and the bricklayers at work, which is of particular interest to me as my father was a brickie on that job.

Those were hard times and he had been going to Holbrook each day on his motorcycle from Mersea to work on the new hospital school being built at that time.

It was not a good job. It was a wet summer and at the first drop of rain the whistle blew and the men had to stop work and shelter until the rain stopped and the whistle was blown again.

Of course, between whistles there was no pay and there were days when the long journey saw little or no earnings.

On his journey home one day he was waiting at East Gates for a train to pass and met a former workmate who had good news.

Work was starting on a new cinema in Crouch Street and he suggested dad went along to see if could get a job.

He went along on Monday morning and was taken on and was one of the first brickies on the job, which saw him in work through the following winter.

Men on the Holbrook job were coming from Colchester, Ipswich and the surrounding areas as it was about the only work going.

As work started on the Regal, work started on some new council houses at Ipswich and some other work started, so in the end the Holbrook builders were having difficulty finding labour to finish the job.

My father was also a bricklayer on the Playhouse cinema in Colchester.

Ron Green
Seaview Avenue
Mersea Island