Albert Uprichard, who is 89-years-old and lives at Hall Mills Gardens, visited the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, where the Silent Cinema has been restored for visitors to experience.
Mr Uprichard was one of a number of people from the area given the opportunity to visit the Silent Cinema, which was originally located in Dunbarton Street – at the rear of where the Blytheswood charity shop is currently located.
The visit, which was organised by community group Gilford Together, proved to be very nostalgic for Albert.
He said, "It was fabulous to see the cinema again because it's been a very long time. I watched many films there a child. There used to be three films on a week, then none were screened at the weekend and then the next week you went back to watch the second part of the films."
Albert visited the Picture House frequently and particularly enjoyed watching Charlie Chaplin, Busker Keaton and the Cowboys and Indians movies. He also remembers Ida Pentland, who established the cinema with her husband George around 1909, playing the piano during movie intervals.
He added, "She also used to provide a running commentary and translate what was happening on the screen for the audience."
George and Ida Pentland were talented musicians and local entrepreneurs who ran a draper's and tailoring business in Gilford, and it is thought they opened the cinema in response to the decline of the local Total Abstinence Society and Band of Hope, by providing an alcohol-free form of entertainment for the community.
However, with the advent of films with sound, or 'talkies' as they were dubbed in the 1920s, being more expensive to run, many small picture houses were unable to continue and the Gilford Silent Cinema, one of the last known in Northern Ireland, is believed to have shut its doors in 1931.
The cinema, which occupied the entire first floor of the building, remained in the Dunbarton Street property until 64 years later, when it attracted the attention of the Folk Museum, who contacted owners Mr John Lunney and his son, David, who owns Lunney's Electrical Stores in Portadown, Banbridge, Lisnaskea and Fivemiletown, to express interest in purchasing the building.
John, who previously donated the cinema's piano to the Museum, kindly also donated the Picture House free of charge, but due to funding difficulties however, this did not happen until three years later, when in 1998 a grant from the Heritage Lottery of £178,000 was awarded to the UFTM. The building was then removed brick-by-brick from its location and rebuilt at Cultra, and the project was completed on June 14 this year.
Unveiled by Edwin Poots, Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, the Silent Cinema is now part of a £1.2 million complex which also includes a draper's shop, photographer's studio, hard-ware store and period tea rooms. And as one of its original patrons, Albert hopes the restored Gilford Picture House will give an insight into how rural communities spent their leisure time in days gone by. "It will be very interesting for children to experience what silent cinema was all about," he said.