Trade NamesAbbey Films has survived and prospered through the ups and downs of the cinema business since the 1940s. Rose Doyle meets the company's founder for a trip down memory lane

Kevin Anderson's first memory, when he was just a few years old in 1918, is of being pushed across Dublin in his wickerwork go-car.

The family was on the move from Anglesea Street to Fairview and there was a lot of delph and cutlery piled up behind him. "The Troubles were going on," he recalls, "and on the way over we were stopped by cordons of soldiers. That's my very first recollection."

He has many, many other recollections, most of them centred on humour and enlivened with an undying sense of mischief.

He was born in 1915, which makes him an ageless 89, has charm to burn and an undimmed enthusiasm for life. He is the man who, in 1940 with his step-brother, Leo Ward, started Abbey Films, distributors of almost all of the films which come into the country.

He has other business interests, too, mostly in the shareholding world, but Abbey Films was the beginning and beginnings are what he wants to talk about.

As well as about his deceased wife, Carmel, nee Nolan. "Her family were in business in Capel Street and we met in Howth," he explains. They'd been together 55 years when she died seven years ago. He celebrates her and their lives together every day.

"Time is yesterday to me," he says, and tells his own story, his relish for the moment and a good lunch belying any notion that he might actually live in the past.

"I was born in Anglesea Street, close to the Stock Exchange. My gynaecologist was Sir Lambert Ormsby," he grins. "I've never been able to find out who Sir Lambert Ormsby actually was. My parents were Martha and Thomas Anderson and I was christened in Westland Row."

His father, Thomas, died when he was "about two-and-a-half. There was a tailor opposite our premises and a John Ward used have his suits made there. After my father died he asked the tailor to introduce him to my mother, the widow. So the tailor did, for £25!"

He laughs, full of mischief at the idea of a marriage made on the introduction of a canny tailor. That was when the family moved to Fairview.

"When I got a little older," he goes on, "I can remember hearing music coming from a Black 'n Tan tender at Fairview corner and us children gathering around, listening to this horn and the disc going round. An officer brought us sweets but we didn't dare tell our parents. We'd have been murdered for taking them from him."

His first brush with schooling was in Fairview NS, where "the girls were always getting into trouble for wearing short skirts. We had a Maypole and used go round it with the teacher making a design."

From there he went to St Joseph's, Marino, where he got his first "biff" for "standing his ground" about the spelling of a word he hadn't heard before. Then it was on to O'Connell Schools.

"There's a lot of talk now about the Christian Bros, but I never found any attempt at interference, of any description. Some of the lads were at it all right. At least so they told me though I don't know how true it was."

Schooldays over he went into local government in the Civil Service - "where everyone did very little and, if you spoke Irish, didn't have to do anything! It was appalling. We never saw the minister from one end of the year to another, though things were his responsibility."

After a few years of this he moved to builders' merchants, T & C Martin and began honing the business and financial skills he would polish and enjoy using for the rest of his life.

"I left T & C Martin because cement was disappearing, hundreds of tons; the pilfering was appalling. I told the boss about it and nothing happened. I couldn't stay after that so I left. That's when the films started, through my step-brother, Leo Ward, who was with the Irish International Film agency, which used distribute a lot of German films in the country.

"Leo played football for Drumcondra and got the call for Manchester City, a big team at the time. I took his place in the agency while he was away and we did a deal for a Jack Doyle film, dividing the receipts so that Gilbert Church, which made it, got £500 and IIF got £500. I remember Jack and Movita in the Royal Theatre - they were real love birds! Wonderful!"

When the second World War came Leo Ward's footballing contract was cancelled.

"When he came back to Dublin we started our own film distribution company and called it Abbey Films," Kevin Anderson explains. The brothers brought in more Jack Doyle films, and distributed others of hurling and football finals.

"Then I brought in The Hills of Donegal, Danny Boy and a series with comic characters Lucan and McShane. I produced Who Fears to Speak of '98 with an independent film company from the UK. Cyril Cusack did the commentary. He was a wonderful guy, great on accents. I gave him a script and he asked if he could do his own and fit the words to the pictures. The picture wasn't much good but the words were wonderful!"

The century and times moved on, television moved in and, in the early l960s, "cinemas began to close. I was doing quite well on the stock exchange and I'd some money to spare so we started buying cinemas. Because they were closing you could buy them quite cheaply, so long as you could keep them open."

He recounts gleefully how their 400-seater Grand Central in Limerick took business from the 2,000-seater Savoy opposite. "We'd a slow cashier.

The Savoy patrons would see the long queue and think there was a better film on show in the Central and cross over. We were playing films after the Savoy had shown them too. The slow cashier was a great asset! I've never known how many cinemas we own. I've lost count - we have them all over the place."

He's never gone to the films much himself, except maybe when visiting London. "Leo was the one who loved the films," he says. "He dealt with booking them and I just collected the money! We never owed the bank money, never. Once the bank had a cheque of ours we honoured it. We expected them to, because we'd the funds. That's what banks should do, honour one's cheques. I like things to be simple and easy."

The best film-going times, he says, were during the second World War. "There was nowhere to go but to the cinema. We spoiled sales a bit by not showing good films and showing raggedy films on Sundays.Cinemas were much bigger then - I remember the row when we split the Green Cinema on Stephen's Green in two."

His favourite film of all time was The Quiet Man with Maureen O'Hara. "Of its time, it was very good. She wasn't a wonderful actress but she was a really beautiful girl."

He is still, he says, involved in business. "I do a bit. It's still money. I've enjoyed life but you had to do some work! I've always said people are more important than money. We've some wonderful people working for us - if you have the people, service will follow. There are so many good people out there, and so many terrible people. If you do some good as you go through life, that's what it's about. People are everything."

He thinks, for a quick minute, about it all: "Civilisation, and civilising takes a long, long time."