24 October 1917; Wednesday

Up at about 8 o’clock. Spent usual day. Father off in the afternoon and went to the Picture House1 with me where we saw “A Tale of Two Cities”2. Went to Todd’s at night and had a very nice time. A few strange girls3 there.


  1. “The Picture House”: the capitals are the editor’s and are not marked in the shorthand. Was this the Picture House, reputedly the oldest cinema in Sunderland and still operating in the 1940s, or  a picture house (possibly the Havelock House again; see 27 December 1915)? 

  2. A Tale of Two Cities: Presumably the 1917 silent version released by Fox Film Corporation, directed by Frank Lloyd and starring William Farnum, Jewel Carmen and Charles Clary

  3. “Strange girls” may sound odd to contemporary ears, but ALL means only that these girls were not previously known to him and not that they were peculiar.