Miles Kington: Pop earned his corn in the cinema. Literally

'Let's sit at the front of the cinema,' my father said. 'It's easier to cook down there. More room'

The book I have most often been taking to the beach this year is my own autobiography, which I am in the process of writing. On the beach, as it happens. I venture to think you may enjoy a small extract from it...

My father used to take us to the cinema quite often, but although he usually liked the films, he hated the popcorn and refused to buy us any.

"It's horrible stuff, cinema popcorn," he said. "Not like the home-made thing at all. I won't buy it in a cinema. Never."

"It doesn't stop you buying ice cream and choc bars in cinemas," my mother objected. "Or crisps. But they are never as good as the home-made thing either."

"Yes, but I can't make ice cream at home," said my father. "I can't make crisps. And I can't make choc bars. But one thing I can do is make popcorn. And next time we go the cinema I'll jolly well make it myself."

He was often making promises like this, though seldom carrying them out. Anyway, we all thought he just meant he would make some popcorn at home and take it with us to the cinema. We never realised he meant he was going to make it in the cinema.

"What on earth are you doing with that primus burner?" said my wife.

"Cleaning it."

"I can see that. But why?"

"To get it clean," said my father.

It's hopeless having a discussion when one side doesn't want to discuss anything, so my mother fell silent, even when my father brought the primus burner to the cinema, with a bag of popcorn, a bottle of oil and a saucepan.

"Let's sit down the front," said my father, when we got into the cinema to see some John Wayne film or other.

"I hate the front," said my mother. "So near the screen. So loud and bright."

"Yes, but it's easier to cook down at the front," said my father. "More room."

My mother once told me that they had always had this argument about where to sit in cinemas. Father liked the front because you felt inside the action. Mother liked the back because you had a more balanced view – anyway, she said, it was obviously better because the seats were more expensive at the back.

"So why are the most expensive seats in the theatre at the front?" my father would say. "And the cheaper seats at the back?"

It was one of those circular arguments that never get settled...

So my father disappeared down the front, while the rest of us went to the back stalls. After about 10 minutes of John Wayne and cattle and big plains and some gunplay, but no shooting, I was startled by a voice in my ear.

"Got a light?" said my father. "I'm ready to light the primus."

"Look, dad," I said. "Do you really..?"

"Just give me a goddam match."

He didn't swear normally. I put it down to the pervasive influence of John Wayne, who, even as we spoke, was being offensive to some cavalry officers.

Ten minutes later, there was a delicious smell down at the front. Father's popcorn cooking was clearly under way. There was a faint puff of smoke, which mingled oddly well with the camp scenes on the cinema screen depicting the US Cavalry getting down to supper.

Ten minutes later my mother said to me: "You'd think your father would have brought us some popcorn by now."

A little while later there was some movement of people down at the front, and my mother sighed.

"I'm very much afraid that you father has attracted the attention of the authorities again. He is probably being thrown out for breaking fire regulations. Go and see if you can help him. And if you can't, at least rescue the popcorn and bring us back some."

My mother was wrong. Although John Wayne was at that very moment being ejected by the cavalry for being a trouble-maker and Indian-lover, in real life the authorities hadn't even noticed my father. But they had been spotted by everyone in the front of the cinema, and they were now queueing up to buy some of this delicious-smelling popcorn.

"Made a profit, old girl!" my father said as we emerged from the cinema. "Paid for our seats and cleared another five quid! I'm on to something here."

And indeed he was. This heralded a new activity for my father, who began to visit the cinema on a regular basis without ever watching a film. In later years he used to say that, when the history of British cinema came to be written, he might be the only person in it who had consistently made a profit.