business, Morton said he still found musical shows to be the most profitable. Pantomime, which everyone thought was dying, was undergoing a healthy revival. The Hull Daily Mail recalled later that 'W.F.' was highly regarded by theatre managers "for his business acumen, unquestioned probity, and his strict regard for the letter of his bond. His judgment of the public taste in theatrical entertainment was unerring. His co-directors regarded him as a very able man of proved capacity in theatre management and a very sound henchman in the troubled waters of cinema competition." Troubled waters By 1930 the impact of those troubled waters was intensified by the Great Depression. Morton said that the talkies had shut down the theatres and music-halls, and that the building scramble for talkies was stopping. And so the Grand was remodelled as a cinema, leaving the Alexandra as Hull's one remaining significant theatre. Cinema difficulties Vertical integration was biting. Gaumont, initially film-makers, were expanding across the country and finally acquired 343 properties. Their cinemas had exclusive access to all Gaumont films and considerable bargaining power elsewhere. Later in 1930 Morton sold the Holderness Hall to Gaumont. The following year he declared optimistically, "The installation of talkies at the Grand Theatre has been a triumphant success." He thought greater success awaited the talkies once quality and musical accompaniment improved. Although the economic situation could not be worse, it was not necessarily bad for business. Surprisingly, during the Lancashire cotton famine (1860-1865), when the mill owners could not get the raw material, business had been better than usual. Men went to the public-houses and places of amusement while their wives and children were crying for bread. The same thing had happened in Hull during the general strike of 1926. The lead on the front page of the Mail on 21 January 1932 featured five photographs of Morton's daily activities together with his 94th birthday reflections. The world is "in a fog," he said, "but I am optimistic, despite the economic crisis." Old-fashioned practices would die out; the public would educate itself to new methods. Somewhat prematurely he thought the craze for putting up new picture houses had faded out. His concerns were: that cinemas were totally dependent on foreign resources; that distributors made demanding contracts; that although British pictures were coming to the front, they lacked the speculative investment of their Hollywood rivals; that most American pictures were