New-fangled cinematography was still a great novelty in 1908, so the youngsters who trooped towards Barnsley Public Hall one Saturday afternoon that January were in a state of high excitement. The boys and girls who hurried along the town’s Eldon Street were looking forward to a cinematographic display and children’s variety show mounted by the World’s Animated Picture Company that would cost them a then-not-inconsiderable penny apiece. But despite the price there were plenty of takers.