THE photographs in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane look at the top of Dunfermline High Street where the Regal once stood across from what is now the main entrance to the Kingsgate Shopping Centre.

The Regal Picture House opened in December 1931 and was built on the site of the former Olympia Cinema. The architect was T Bowhill Gibson, who provided a building to seat 1,805 people. At its opening, the Regal was lit by three flood lamps that had been used previously to illuminate Edinburgh Castle and at that time it was the only floodlit frontage in Dunfermline. Together with the latest neon signage, it was an impressive sight at night. It was on a very sloping site which meant the balcony was more or less at street level with the stalls down a very broad flight of marble steps.

Our first photograph shows how it looked in 1959.

Margaret Healy remembers the Regal from her childhood days: “The family all went to the Regal to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang during the power cuts in the early ’70s as the Regal had its own generator. Imagine how cool it would be to still have that lovely old cinema in the High Street today? I have a black and white photo of my mum and dad from the early 1950s outside the Regal as when it was busy, a photographer would be outside asking courting couples if they would like their picture taken. Happy times!”

Ian Gourlay thought highly of the Regal in comparison with the various other cinemas around at that time: “I think the Regal was easily the best cinema in Fife. It was big enough to cope with the biggest features for a town like Dunfermline and had an internal ‘crush hall’ where folks could queue for the previous house of patrons to vacate their seats. Back then there was a full show with the main attraction, a second feature and often a cartoon, Pathe newsreel and local adverts from ‘Pearl & Dean’. Pretty sure the show ran twice-nightly except on a Sunday.”

Lynne Channing can vouch for the cinema’s popularity: “I remember the queue used to be about a mile long waiting to get into the Regal. Away down the Regal close past McPhersons book shop.”

The next photograph is of a promotion for one of the ‘Carry On’ series of films in the foyer of the cinema, and Moira Hunter has reason to recall the photo opportunity that took place around 1960: “I’m one of the girls sitting on the camp bed in the Regal when ‘Carry on Camping’ was on – the other girl is my sister.”

It closed in 1976 having been acquired by Littlewoods retail stores. Shortly afterwards, vandals broke into the building and set it on fire and our next photograph is a view of the fire dominating the Dunfermline skyline.

The final photograph shows the demolition under way.

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