I think it was a very bad choice to replace the Regent building and the opposite one with the bland Boots and George! Shameful, especially for the employees of the Cinema.

How lovely to see a picture of the Regent in the 1950s.  I spent so many happy times there dancing the night away.  I was a nurse in Worthing and as soon as we came off duty we made straight from there to the Regent.  Dancing was a great therapy in those days.  Also I met my first real love, Michael Benjamin, whose parents had the Cottage Club at 25 Brunswick Terrace.  Those were the days!  However Michael is in Australia now and I am still here, married twice with 8 children but I remember the happy days at the Regent with so much pleasure.  Thank you.

Isn't it a shame that of all the wonderful cinemas listed on this site, only two remain: the Duke of York and the Odeon, West Street, even that is not the original.  The Astoria building is also still there, but for how long?  I know times change but cinema-going is not quite the same in the Multis at the Marina as it used to be in those wonderful old picture houses.

I also danced at the Regent Ballroom and often went to the cinema there as well. I attemded a secretarial college in Brighton from 1950 to late 1951 and got to know the area well, travelling by train from Goring but living in Ferring. I remember the beautiful sprung floor of the ballroom and the revolving light in the centre. I also used to skate on Sunday evenings at the ice rink just down the road. Happy days. I still visit Brighton and have a great affection for it, although now live in Hertfordshire.

How many people today would believe that you would queue up to stand to watch a film at the Regent!

Thanks for the lovely photos they bring back such good memories. I was born in Brighton lived all my childhood at Manor Farm and went to St Mark's School before it was bombed in WW2. After then I went to Whitehawk school. The Regent was where we used to meet all our friends, to dance or go to the pictures. We all skated at the rink in West Street and also the roller rink when that was opened some time later, on the opposite side of the road. It was a shame it all had to change, but it's nice to see these photos again. I will keep looking in on these .

Anyone ele remember going to the Saturday morning pictures at the Odeon Kemp Town? The session started with a yo-yo display and ended with a gripping instalment of the serial. This was the early 1950s. We all sang the song 'We are the minors of the ABC'.

The Wurlitzer Theatre Organ from the Regent Cinema in Brighton can be heard at Paul Corin's Magnificent Music Machines in Cornwall. Website: www.paulcorinmusic.co.uk

Hi Jackie, I used to go to the Odeon in KempTown on Saturday mornings. Do you redeemer when you came out, the cafe along the road use to sell slices of bread and dripping for a penny? I won a painting contest, painting the Bisto kids and the prize was tea at the Burlington Hotel, with all the other winners in the different cinemas. We met Glynis Johns who was Miranda the mermaid; she sat at the end of the table wearing her fish tail. It was fabulous!

I used to go to the Odeon every Satuarday morning and I also remember the yo-yo display and yes loved the break and dripping for one penny. I lived in Whitehawk and went to school there. I look back and think how poor we were but what lovley times we had. What great times we had at the Regent Ballroom. I used to go there on a Thrusday night and Saturday night and dance the night away. The other place we used to hang out in was the Whisky Go-Go.
Yes fab times .

With reference to Harry Atkins' comment of 29/10/2008, I certainly remember the cafe up the road and their wonderful bread and dripping for a penny. I used to live in Sussex Square in the late 40s up to 1953, and the cafe was a regular stopping place for my pal and myself if we had a penny to spare. In later years as a teenager I went out with a girl and found out that her parents owned that cafe, their surname was Tugwell. I was taken to meet her parents in the cafe, and the big pudding basin of dripping was still there. It is many years since I have eaten bread and dripping.

I remember that on my second visit to a cinema (the first had been Dumbo at the Grenada Hove) I saw Snow White at the Regent. I believe it was the time of our first victories in North Africa. What sticks in my mind is that, just after we arrived, the news came on and the aisles were crammed with people who appeared to have come in purely to watch it. When images of hundreds of enemy prisoners of war marching into captivity, with their hands on their heads, appeared on the screen the place just exploded with cheering and exclamations of joy. As a child the war meant nothing special to me as I had known nothing else, but looking back I can now understand the emotions that these first victories must have evoked in those with a much greater apreciation of what defeat could mean than us children. Much later I spent about three years plucking up courage before daring to ask girls to dance at the Regent Balllroom and the last of these is now my wife of forty-two years.

Jackie.  I used to also go to the pictures every Saturday morning with my sister Jean and it was so exciting to me.

I grew up in Brighton and I remember all the old cinemas even if I didn't go in some of them. What I hate about so-called 'modern' cinemas of the multiplex type, is WHY do they have to have the sound system turned up to 12db?? It really makes my ears hurt. I took my 17 year old daughter to see Harry Potter recently and saw with my hands over my ears the whole time!!

When you went to a place like The Regent, you always felt 'a sense of occasion' and you would have a great night out - either at the cinema or the dance hall. It is tragic that it was destroyed .... and for what? A building that could have been built anywhere. We should never have allowed it to happen - shame on all of us.

Does anyone remember The Zodiac Coffee Bar at the bottom of St.James's Street, it was above a shop (I can't remember the name of the shop) and you went up the side stairs. It was run by a couple named Pam and Eric. There was a fabulous juke box and the boys drank 'milk'! In 196l I was working in West Street for the Machinery Publishing company and we would nip down through The Lanes (past the old Hippodrome) and have a coffee in The Zodiac and play the jukebox which was then 6d a go. I remember playing Bobby Vee's Rubber Ball over and over again. Then Thursday night jiving at the Regent for 2/6d. What very happy times.

I do vaguely remember the Zodiac coffee bar. I only went there a couple of times. I used to go to Tiffany's coffee bar. That was a bit further up St James's Street, in Kemp Town. The mod's used to hang out there. We spent many happy hours there drinking hot blackcurrant and coffee. We used to meet in the basement, with all our scooters parked in a row outside. It was the place to be. Great. Does anybody remember? It was runs by two guys, both called John.

I remember the Zodiac well. From 1962 to 1964 it was where all the Brighton mods went (I was one). We would then go down to the Florida Rooms. Also Tiffanys in St Georges Road, Kemp Town was another mod hang out. I also went to the Regent Ballroom and the Starlight Rooms. Great times.

Wow, I remember usheretting at the Regent for a short stint around 1969 / 1970, when the film 'Song of Norway' about the composer Edvard Grieg was playing for several weeks, and how I used to cringe every day when I saw all the flaws in the film. Not long after, I think it was part of this building that became 'The Apple' where friends and I went to see the Rolling Stones play in March 1971. Did this then all become the 'Virgin' shop where we lay around on cushions listening to all the latest sounds, and which is now (or at least was when I was last in Brighton) 'Boots'?