THE photographs in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane look at the history of the Kinema Ballroom in Dunfermline.

The information and photographs come from the excellent website, www.kinemagigz.com, created by Dunfermline entertainment historian Colin Gourlay that gives a comprehensive history of one of the more important venues in the history of live music performance in Scotland.

The original 'Kinema Ballroom' was Dunfermline's first ever purpose-built dance hall and had its main entrance at 19 Pilmuir Street Dunfermline. Our first photograph shows this entrance, which is still there today, though shuttered over.

The name 'Kinema' came about because the owner's first venture was the nearby picture house in Pilmuir Street called ‘The Palace Kinema’. A Grand Opening Carnival Dance took place on Friday, December 23, 1938, and patrons danced the night away to the sounds of Ernest Dobbie and his Swingtette Dance Band after Provost Hoggan performed the opening ceremony.

Described in its early advertising variously as 'The Dancer’s Mecca', 'The Rendezvous Of All Discerning Dancers', 'Fifeshire’s Super Dance Hall' and, for five weeks in January and February 1939 as 'The Kinema Super Ballroom', patrons were invited to “Follow the dancers” and, most famously, to “Dance And Be Gay The KB Way”.

The Kinema Ballroom was closed on Saturday, December 30, 1939, and re-opened on Wednesday, July 30, 1941. During this time, it was used to billet soldiers from some Scottish regiments while some Polish soldiers were billeted at the Carnegie Women's Institute on the opposite side of Pilmuir Street. The then manager, George Hylands, was quite concerned about the soldiers stomping around on the new sprung floor that had been installed and had it protected by a linoleum floor-covering during the period it was used by the soldiers.

By the early sixties, it became clear that a much larger facility was required, so in 1964 its capacity was quadrupled to more than 1,000 with the building of a large extension to the north, including a two-storey frontage on Carnegie Street (now Carnegie Drive). It soon became one of Scotland's most important live music venues. Our next photograph shows some of the staff in the 1960s.

In 1980, it became one of the most innovative and award-winning discotheques in Europe as 'Night Magic' and then, in 1988, it was remodelled as ‘Hollywood Boulevard’ as seen in our next image.

In 2007, the name changed again to ‘Velocity’ and the frontage can be seen in our final photograph.

A huge number of artists and bands performed in the Ballroom over the years including The Average White Band, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, The Bay City Rollers, local groups Nazareth, Big Country, and The Skids, David Bowie, Boy George, The Clash, Billy Connolly, Elvis Costello, The Kinks, The Moody Blues, Cliff Richard, Sandie Shaw, Supertramp, and Elton John.

More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries as well as at facebook.com/olddunfermline.

With thanks to Frank Connelly.