Britannia pier

An usherettes life

By Sarah Woods

I used to work at the Britannia Pier as an usherette. As an usherette I had various roles. I used to be able to direct people to their seats, man the emergency exits, sell ice creams during the interval (either from an individual tray, from the designated freezers on either side of the stage or in the kiosk in the foyer).There were pros and cons for each sale point.

When I started there Jim Davidson was in for the season. That was a good show to learn the ropes on. You soon learnt that things didn't always work to timings, but you got to learn different cue lines very quickly to let you know how things were going. If Jim was getting good feedback from the audience he could be there an hour or more, if not he stuck to his 45mins contracted stint & not much more.

I was the only girl who begged to be downstairs when we had the Chippendales. Fortunately most of my colleagues were hoping to be allocated a tray or freezer as that meant they'd be in the auditorium longer. I'm afraid that wasn't me. On those nights I didn't need a torch, my face shone like a Belisha beacon! I covered various shows while I was there. I also had the opportunity to turn my hand to sales assistant in two of the pier food outlets. I did the ice cream palour and the donught place. I was intrigued by the way the donught machine worked. The Whippy ice cream machine was a bit too much for me, fortunately I didn't have to cover in there much.