RECALLING going to the pictures in Glasgow, Irene Robertson remembers sitting in the magnificent Olympia Cinema in Bridgeton watching the desert-set war movie Ice Cold in Alex when the interval seemed longer than usual.

Says Irene: "We heard footsteps and laughing, and down the aisle came a vision of loveliness. It was Sylvia Syms who had been on her way to the Ca'Doro in Union Street for a dinner but saw the Olympia was showing her film, so she dropped in."

Three things spring to mind. First that cinemas used to have intervals, either between the main feature and the B Movie, or even halfway through the film itself if it was a long one. Secondly, you don't imagine many of today's film stars excitedly strolling into a Glasgow cinema that was showing their film. And thirdly, we've really got used to the motorway through Glasgow, as when was the last time you'd drive through Bridgeton Cross to get to Union Street?

For years folk have talked about the demise of cinema-going. After all, Glasgow in the 1930s had more cinemas per head of population than any other city in the world. At its peak there were 114 cinemas offering 175,000 seats. The largest in Europe was Green's Playhouse with over 4300 seats, plus a ballroom above it and even a putting green.

As Historic Scotland explained in its study of cinema architecture: "They provided novelty and escapism for the whole family unlike traditional venues such as pubs. They were warm and, at their most basic, provided very cheap entertainment. For those living in crowded accommodation, they could even provide relative quiet and a sense of escape."

So it wasn't that Glaswegians were the best film fans in the world, it's just that their homes were so squalid they had to get out to somewhere cheap.

Then came television, and the cinemas began to close or morph into bingo halls. I can think of only seven cinemas now in Glasgow, but all is not as gloomy as an Ingmar Bergman film. The number of screens at the venues is high, the experience is enjoyable and the quality of the film and sound is remarkable. But, I hear readers say, you can't enjoy the film for people using their mobile phones, talking, and noisily chewing buckets of popcorn.

With respect, that's rich coming from folk who, when they were young, attended ABC Minors clubs on a Saturday morning, whooping and hollering with the Red Indians, firing imaginary guns at the baddies, and generally rolling in the aisles play-fighting. Oh how they forget.

This week is the start of the 10th Glasgow Film Festival at the Glasgow Film Theatre, which has grown from 68 films in its first year to over 350 events. Allison Gardner, head of cinemas at the GFT, tells me why the cinema is still popular at a time when people immerse themselves in their own electronic devices.

"It's about a shared experience," says Allison. "People want to laugh or cry together, and afterwards talk to each other about what they have seen. Our visitors from London remark on how Glasgow audiences want to discuss the film afterwards which is less common in London.

"There will always be a demand for good films in nice surroundings."

The GFT - older readers will remember it as the Cosmo - still has ushers who not only help you to your seats, but check the heating is comfortable and that the film is in focus. I remember one reader being in a cinema where the film started with no sound, and there was no member of staff there. Eventually someone shouted out: "Who's got the remote?"

Another classic shout was heard by a reader when someone cried: "Is there a doctor here?" Amid the stunned silence and collective worry, a chap answered: "Yes. Why?" The first voice shouted back: "It's a great film, isn't it?"

The Cosmo, short for Cosmopolitan, built 75 years ago with its art deco facade, was Britain's first purpose-built arts cinema outside London, and promised the best in Continental cinema and revivals of classic British and American films.

For the more excitable, Continental often meant films with sex, or at least a bare breast or two. As a former student at the school of art, just up the road from the Cosmo, Isabella Ulph wrote on the GFT's Cinema City website: "The high spot for us was when the ladies who had come from out of town to shop in Glasgow and take in a film would, once they had seen the naughty scenes, stand up outraged and announce how disgusted they were and stomp out."

It was at the GFT that author AL Kennedy said she learned French by watching as many French movies as she could, and holding her fingers up at eye level so that she couldn't see the subtitles.

Of course not everyone who goes to the cinema - when did it become the cinema and not the pictures? - has read the book on which the film is based. A reader swore to us that he heard a young chap coming out of the cinema having seen The Hobbit, and declaring: "How do they get away with it? That was just a rip-off of Lord of the Rings."

But whether you like art films, rom-coms, cartoons or action films, it really is the magic of the cinema that attracts you. As Peggy Burke put it so well on Cinema City: "A happy cinema memory is going on a blind date to The Hillhead on Byres Road in 1948. My blind date and I have now been married for 61 years and still love the pictures."