Matinee mayhem that left 70 children dead Paisley remembers its crushing tragedy born of panic over a suspected fire

Ironically, tragically, as the children's bodies piled up behind a locked emergency exit, the dying entwined with the dead, the fire they thought they were fleeing turned out to be no more than thick black smoke coming from a reel of film they had just been shown.

The Glen Cinema disaster, which happened 70 years ago tomorrow, devastated Paisley. The entire town, all Scotland, went into mourning. One family lost three children, three families two each, 37 children were injured, and throughout the first week of the New Year there was a seemingly never-ending procession of white coffins through the town.

Condolences and donations to a distress fund poured in from around the world, and an inquiry into the appalling death toll brought about a change in the law governing escape routes from cinemas and theatres. A disaster such as the mounds of crushed young bodies, aged 18 months to 13 years, recovered from the Glen Cinema would never happen again. But for 70 Paisley bairns the law forbidding the locking of emergency exits came too late.

The Glen Cinema, opened in 1910, once formed part of the Good Templar Halls: its main entrance in Gilmour Street, opposite the Cross, the rear exit giving on to Dyers Wynd alongside the River Cart.

Hogmanay 1929 fell on a Tuesday, Paisley's streets were thronged with shoppers laying in supplies for the celebration to come and excited children found it none too difficult given the holiday spirit to persuade parents to part with the twopence needed to see an exciting cowboy film ''Desperado Dude''.

The cinema was packed by the time the first reel was laced up and the house lights dimmed. No exact count was made at the box office, but firemen and police said there may have been as many as 1000 children packed on to the wooden benches when ''Desperado Dude'' hit the trail.

To maintain control and look after the safety of this huge crowd of excited youngsters the cinema had just two employees in the auditorium, a male attendant and a woman selling chocolates.

Operating the projector was Alexander Rosie, aged 20, helped by his assistant, 15-year-old James McVey who, according to the report of the official investigation, was ''a very small boy for his age''. Young James was to feature large in the drama of the next half-hour.

When the first reel of the film had been shown James took it to the rewinding room, an unventilated area just 6ft-long by 3ft 3in wide: little more than a cupboard.

He put the tin box containing the film down in a corner, on top of a six-volt accumulator required for a piece of the cinema's apparatus. As he opened a box to get out another reel of film he heard a hissing noise, thought it was a gas escape from a radiator just outside the room, but found nothing amiss when he looked out. When he stepped back into the rewinding room, however, he saw smoke coming from the tin film box he had only recently put in the corner.

In his report into the cause of the tragedy HM Chief Inspector of Explosives, Major Crozier, told the Secretary of State for Scotland: ''Knowing that if he left it in the room fire might spread to the other films he (McVey) picked up the box and ran to a door.''

The door, which led out to waste ground, was either locked or tight. Whichever, James could not open it. Putting the smouldering box down on the concrete floor he ran to get Alexander Rosie, the projectionist.

But Rosie could not leave the projector and told the boy to get the manager. James told Major Crozier's inquiry that, on his way to the manager's office, he had to push his way through children in the gangway.

Alerted, the manager hurried back through the hall full of children to the tin of film which was now filling the passageway with dense fumes. He managed to open the door and kick the film outside, then pushed the boy towards the main entrance and safety.

Reported Major Crozier: ''By this time the smoke had penetrated into the hall and the children, possibly disturbed by the manager and McVey pushing hurriedly along the gangway, had seen the smoke and, in a panic, rushed through the exits on either side of the stage.''

Having coped with stiff but workable push-bars they were then confronted by a concertina gate - pulled across and closed.

''The children piled up in a heap at the bottom of the steps, and up the steps right into the passages, and, it was said, practically into the hall,'' states Major Crozier's report. One swing door leading to the locked gate had been torn off its hinges . . . ''which shows how frantic were the efforts made by the children to escape''.

The reel of film, in a tin and denied air, had not burst into flames but smouldered vigorously, giving off very dense clouds of brown irritant fumes, poisonous and with a high percentage of carbon monoxide. The disaster, said fire experts, came about because the tin containing the first reel of ''Desperado Dude'' had been laid on top of the accumulator and a short circuit across the terminals ignited the film inside.

Paisley went into mourning and all the world, it seemed, grieved with the bereaved parents. Telegrams, letters of sympathy and contributions poured in. Provost Craig Barr set up a Cinema Disaster Fund which, after just nine days, amounted to #4000 - a fortune at that time.

President Cosgrove of the Irish Free State sent his sympathy, the Scottish Cinema Trade Benevolent Fund #500 and Ulster Cinematograph Theatres Ltd #77.15/-. The Burgh of Devizes sent sympathy, the Burgh of Saltcoats managed #1.1/- and the British Consulate General in New York forwarded the dollar equivalent of #125.11/10d with a separate cheque for $10 for the assistant projectionist James McVey.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union wrote and the Lord Mayor of Leeds sent his sympathy. The Scottish Greyhound Racing Company Ltd donated #161.10/5 and members of the Cowdray Club in London contributed #32 for the bereaved mothers.

The Highland Society of New South Wales sent a cable, and a body calling itself Clan Fraser And Daughters of the Heather Express in Canada did likewise. Sackloads of black bordered letters of sympathy arrived daily on Provost Barr's desk: unusual and heart rending offers too.

Very generous, but disqualified by a condition she imposed, was the offer of Mrs Jane Rathie of Callander Hydropathic Hotel who was prepared to accommodate, gratis, a number of the injured children. But there was no question of there being room for any accompanying parent. Paisley councillors, however, thought it better that the children, all aged under 12, should be accompanied by their mother or father. Impasse, so the children went elsewhere.

Surplus to requirements was an offer from a man in London who wanted to donate a print of the Old Abbey Church in Paisley. But as Provost Barr, in a thanks-but-no-thanks letter pointed out, ''there are quite a number of these in the district''.

Some women wrote wanting to adopt children who had escaped from the Glen Cinema, but one unmarried mother, writing from Kentish Town in London, asked: ''Is there a mother in your stricken town who would be willing to adopt a little boy of three months?

''I am his mother and cannot keep him myself and would he glad to find a good home for him.''

More prosaically, one small boy who had escaped unharmed from the cinema was thrashed by his mother for losing a shoe in the crush.

So swift was her justice that she heard only later, as news of the tragedy swept though the town, that she was lucky to still have her son, shoe or not.

The Glen Cinema is long gone, tighter laws on cinema safety long established.

But the child graves at Hawkhead and Woodside cemeteries, at Thorn and Kilbarchan, still bear witness to the Hogmanay 70 years ago when tragedy struck Paisley, three score and 10 of the town's children killed in a ''fire'' that was no more than smoke.