The 76-year-old has just completed five decades at the cinema.

"Things were entirely different back then," she said. "They'd show the main film, then a 'B' film, then the main one again.

"People could come in at any time. There was the lovely little circle and stalls, lit by gas lamps.

"There wasn't health and safety and all that nonsense."

Married to James, and with two children by the age of 22, it wasn't until the youngsters reached school age that Joan went out to work.

She started doing five nights a week at the cinema, earning just 25 old pence an evening.

Over the years she became a Cottage Road institution, fulfiling a number of duties.

An old manager took to calling her 'Mrs Fazackalee', after Margaret Rutherford's cashier in the 1957 Peter Sellers comedy The Smallest Show On Earth.

Cottage Road is itself approaching a milestone. One of the oldest cinemas in the country, the traditional one-screen theatre began showing films in 1912 as Headingley Picture House, and Joan is "hoping and praying" it will reach its century.

She says she has never been to a multiplex and is not inclined to start now. But she has always, understandably, been a film fan.
"I used to know them all, from when I were a kid," she said. "We didn't have much else, except going to the pub."

Of the countless films she's seen, Joan names 1996 multi-Oscar winner The EnglishPatient as her favourite. Bottom of the pile was the 1998 screen version of Hunter S Thompson's twisted classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, starring Johnny Depp.
"I hated it!", Joan said. "The language was atrocious, and the drugs. I'm not a prude, never have been, but I thought it was silly."
And she's not particularly sentimental for the films of her youth, which she describes as "very dated", although she applauds Cottage Road's classic film showings.

"We had Casablanca the other week, and it was quite busy," she said.

Six years ago Joan gave up life on the till for cleaning the aisles.

She joked: "I realised when I got to 70 that I was probably frightening the customers to death! I only do two days now but it's nice to still be involved."