THE organiser of a celebratory film screening of the official coloured film record of the coronation was left disappointed when only 30 people turned up to watch it.
Mike Edgecumbe put on the free showing of A Queen is Crowned at Sidmouth Methodist Hall hoping donations would boost the Royal British Legion.
The audience generously gave £120 to the cause, but Mike said he was ‘very sad’ at the ‘poor’ turnout.
He added that those who did come ‘really enjoyed it’.
The showing cost Mike nearly £150 in copyright licence and hall rental fees to put on the show.
He never intended to claim any expenses partly because he dedicated the screening to his late friend Gordon Davies.
Gordon worked with retired cinematographer Mike on his first screenings in 1958 - and later became a projectionist in the Radway Cinema.
Gordon died from cancer five years ago.
Mike said: “If he had been alive he would have been beside me at the projector. I remember seeing it in the Grand Cinema in 1953 with him, Trevor Liverton and many more Sidmothian schoolchildren.”
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