WHISPERING SMITH: From apple to Zanettos, my childhood alphabet

I can remember, just about, my parents taking me to the now long-defunct Pavilion on Banjo Road, to see The Sunshine Pierrots, and I recall the moment the lovely lady singer tossed me a rosy apple and I was smitten.

No biblical reference intended, but that lady and that apple set me off on a road that, upon reflection, sometimes makes me blush.

However, even before the Sunshine Pierrots, there were The Royal Zanettos and the Bale family of entertainers.

Jane Kosuta, a direct descendant of the family, has, with the help of newfound relatives Karen and Terri, old press clippings and, of course, the internet, put together an exhibition on their showbiz history and family links to this area – especially to LA, Bognor, Rustington, The Titanic, The Somme, Houdini, the USA and Charlie Chaplin, with whom they shared billing in the US.

The exhibition continues until August 11, in The Empress restaurant and bar on LA’s Riverside Walk.

Entertaining, informative and interesting, it’s a virtual trip back in time to when summer visitors to our town were revered and well catered-for in seaside style. It should prove quite an attraction.

With the ‘temporary’ demise of any cinema provision and the Windmill itself constantly under threat, we need to offer all that we can to our visitors and one can learn a great deal from the past! Further details of the troupe can be found online at www.TheRoyalZanettos.com

INTERESTING nostalgia spread in last week’s Gazette, regarding Ian Fleming’s heroes and the origins of James Bond. Thinking about it now and, of course, much too late, I cannot help but wonder just how Arun councillors allowed The Marine pub – meeting place of many of those heroes – to be turned into dwellings.

Much like the West Beach Fort, it could well have become an excellent tourist attraction and its destruction may well be something we come to regret in the years to come.

FATAL ATTRACTIONS: To date, there are no forthcoming attractions to our Windmill Cinema, 176 days since our last movie and still counting…