Preface
I was not born in Paisley so the spectre of the Glen Cinema Disaster has not hung over my life. But as I was born in the 1950s, I imagined what I would know of the dreadful event had I lived I the town from that period on. For a start I estimated there would be around 2,000 children who had been the sons and daughters of people who, as children themselves, had survived the disaster. And, although, as we are repeatedly told, nobody really spoke of the event, the survivors would still be known and someone was sure to point out to the children of the survivors the calamity that had befallen their parents on Hogmanay 1929.
I had begun my exploration of Paisley cinemas about three years ago and had started off with the Glen, but put the idea aside when I realised the enormity of the tragedy. However, when I began researching the cinemas of Paisley in the 1950s for my book Paisley at the Pictures 1950 everyone I mentioned it to would always ask if I was going to be writing about the Glen cinema. When I did look into the disaster again, it was initially in the context of investigating how the cinemas of the 1950s - the Astoria, Kelburne, La Scala, Palladium, Picture House, New Alex, Regal and West End – came into being. I discovered that I was also examining the stories of a number of cinemas that had vanished from the Paisley cosmos – the Castle, the Electric, the Hippodrome etc. Into that category, of course, fell the Glen. Although my original intention was to include the Glen in the soon-to-be-published Paisley at the Pictures 1951, but it took up so much of the book that I decided it would be better as a stand-alone volume.
As readers of my previous book will be aware, I have a great depth of knowledge about the cinema business – the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly – and I have brought that to bear in the writing of The Glen Cinema Disaster, Paisley 1929.
The more I examined the circumstances surrounding the tragedy, the more I realised it could easily have been prevented if cinema managers, aware of the inherent dangers of film itself, had insisted that manufacturers stop supplying moviemakers with that type of film and instead provide something more inherently safer. Using nitrocellulose film was like installing an unexploded bomb in a cinema.
But, of course, they did not and one of the many catastrophic by-products was the death of 71 children on Hogmanay, 1929.
This has been an emotional book to write. It is certainly the saddest story I have ever told. Who cannot be moved by the thought of children going out on a Tuesday afternoon – and never going home again?
Introduction
The takings at the box office at the Glen for the matinee on December 31, 1929, amounted to around £3-£4.
These days the fire that led to the loss of so many young lives would never be allowed to happen. Litigation or the threat of litigation would see to that. But in 1929 nobody thought to launch a class action suit against the cinema – although some compensation was paid - where the dreadful incident took place, nor against the manufacturers of the film that provided its trigger.
There are still cinema fires, of course, but they have a variety of causes, not just one.
In the current climate, if a product – car or tumble dryer, for example - has an inherent flaw and can be proven to imperil the user, it is usually withdrawn from the marketplace, in some cases before death or injury can occur, in other cases brought to the makers’ attention by customer death or injury. In 2019, nearly three million cars made by either Ford or Toyota were recalled after it was discovered that the airbag installed was liable to explode. When it was ascertained that fluff in tumble dryers could catch fire, Whirlpool alone recalled over 600,000 machines. Other suppliers followed suit – Hotpoint, Andesite, Beko, Swan and Creda recalling tumble dryers that could cause a similar problem. Many other items have recently been recalled, Whoosh ceiling fans in 2018, for example, the Safeguard-Plus electric shower the same year. BMW admitted a steering failure in some models and brought them in for repair.
Whatever the problem, these days reaction is the same. To prevent a public outcry, or perhaps in reaction to one, manufacturers take steps to redress the situation, the publicity incurred sometimes appeasing the public, other times inflaming it.
The situation with the tumble dryers is indicative of the human perspective. Nobody wants to be living in the same house as a product that could catch fire, destroy a kitchen or an entire house, and endanger or kill the occupants. And yet in 1929, that was exactly the situation in tens of thousands buildings where millions of people sought entertainment for projection booths in cinemas the world over were a danger to cinemagoers. These days, if you go to the cinema, you will not notice the projection booth, but in 1929 it was obvious. The projection booth was located at the back of the ground level and below the balcony.
Only the thickness of a wall separated the booth from the seated public. There were no fire extinguishers or fire blankets, nobody in the building trained in fire safety or first aid as would be common, not to say mandatory, today.
Because of the flammability of film, once a fire broke out it was unstoppable. And once it did, it triggered panic, often as a big a killer as the flames, the management of which nobody was trained in either.
This book hopes to provide the greatest clarity yet about the disaster. It highlights the events leading up to the fire at the Glen cinema and the movie industry’s total disregard for the danger in which it was placing its customers. It covers cinemagoing of the period, and places the Glen within the context of other cinemas of the era. The main section tells the story of the fire itself and the actions taken and mistakes made that further endangered the audience. The book tells the survivors’ stories and recounts the actions of the fire brigade and the doctors and nurses who attempted to reduce the casualty rate. In the aftermath of the disaster there followed the government enquiry and the trial of cinema manager Charles Dorward for culpable homicide.
Lest we forgot, there were the victims. Whole families left desolate, sons, daughters, cousins, friends, all gone, streets and schools decimated, the survivors, rescuers, the doctors and nurses at the hospital, dealing for the rest of their lives with memories of what they saw that day.
With the 90th anniversary of the disaster taking place on Dec 31, 2019, it is a time for remembrance.
Brian lives in Paisley
Renfrewshire
Scotland
Brian is a writer and manages a secondhand bookshop
© 2025 Brian Hannan