Grand Openings, Sad Closings and a Survivor

Our Sepia Saturday prompt photograph for this week shows the facade of an old picture palace in Dudley Hill, between Bradford and Leeds, according to our leader Alan Burnett, whose photograph it is.

Before the advent of television, going to the pictures was much more of an occasion than it is now. People dressed up smartly for their afternoon or evening out, as quite apart from your theatre-going companions, you never knew who you might run into at the cafe during the interval between the screening of two full length movies, or perhaps movie-tone news and a short film, followed by the main feature. Back in Australia the National Anthem of God Save the Queen was played at the beginning of each session, with the audience expected to stand up and show their loyalty. 

There were lots of picture theatres to choose from, many of which have since closed down completely, with the buildings that housed them either demolished or converted to some other use. A much smaller number remain in operation, competing valiantly against the multiplex cinemas that have sprung up in recent decades in major shopping centres. The web site www.cinematreasures.org purports to be a comprehensive catalogue of cinemas world-wide, past and present.

I've been looking into a few examples of old picture theatres from the areas I'm familiar with in both Melbourne and Sydney.

One old theatre that does not appear in www.cinematreasures.org, but about which I've been able to find out quite a lot via the invaluable Trove web site was The New Malvern Theatre, located on the corner of Glenferrie and Dandenong Rds, Malvern. It opened with much pomp and ceremony, as can be seen from these extracts from publications of the day. The first article describes a walkabout given to a reporter shortly before the opening night.

Table Talk 9 June 1921, snipped from the Trove web site

The second and third articles report extensively on the grand opening, with emphasis on different aspects.

                                     

                                      

Table Talk 9 June 1921, snipped from Trove

                                           

Prahran Telegraph, 4 June 1921, snipped from Trove

The fourth item is a feature article on the New Malvern, accompanied by a  sketch of the exterior and photographs of the interior.

Table Talk 9 June 1921, snipped from Trove

In later years the New Malvern  became a Hoyts establishment, and the last movie to be shown there was apparently Crocodile Dundee. The theatre was permanently closed in 1987, and the building was demolished soon afterwards.

Another picture theatre that operated in my local area, just around the corner in fact, was the art deco designed Waverley Theatre. Opened in 1936. It operated as a theatre until 1962, after which it was used as a recording studio. Despite heritage trust recommendations that the interior be preserved, the building was converted to flats in 2006.  I took a photograph of the facade this morning, and when I noticed that a unit inside was for sale I took the opportunity of going in to inspect, just out of interest. En route I was able to view what remained of the interior, which Ihas been tastefully done and on the walls are a number of framed photographs of the original interior plasterwork, two examples I was able to photograph and include below.

Argus, 12 August 1936, snipped from Trove

Waverley Theatre art deco facade, July 2016

I think some of these railings are still used on the stair wells.

The Wintergarden at Rose Bay in Sydney was yet another of the many impressive old picture theatres of the past. We lived nearby for a couple of years from 1980-1982 and may have even seen a movie there, but I can't be sure. We had our first baby at the time so didn't get out much!  The Wintergarden closed in 1987, the same year as the New Malvern, and was similarly demolished. I certainly remember walking around the building, if not attending a show inside. 

Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 1928, snipped from Trove

The Wintergarden Picture Theatre, as pictured on www.cinematreasures.org. Photograph uploaded by John Gleeson. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1275/photos/81000

Finally, on a positive note, here's one more theatre I'm personally familiar with, and this one is still defiantly surviving, and with just one screen. The Hornsby Odeon as it is now known is located in Hornsby NSW and our son and daughter-in-law who live within close walking distance are regular patrons. We've been to the movies there ourselves over the years when we lived in Sydney. I remember for example taking a party of children to a noisy screening of Men In Black in the early 1990s. 

Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 23 January 1923, snipped from Trove 

Unfortunately I don't have my own photograph of the Odeon, but you can see some here in this Daily Telegraph article about its history and longevity. The sound system has been modernized but I don't believe the seating has been. On the plus side you are less likely to fall asleep during a movie if you are not relaxing in padded comfort.  Long live the Hornsby Odeon!  I much prefer smaller independent theatres and their choice of movies to those of the large cinema complexes. None survive in my immediate area, but we do patronise a couple of semi-original older picture theatres located not far away in Brighton.


For more reminiscences on how things used to be when we went to the pictures and no doubt many other ideas as well, just click and go  have a look at Sepia Saturday #339

To cap it off

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt shows a gentleman out and about in his flat cap.

Below are a couple of photographs of my husband's great grandmother Mary Ann Olds nee Patt with family members, on the pier at Weston-Super-Mare, enjoying a day out. Mary Ann's husband Albert died in 1939 and Mary Ann in 1943, so the pictures may have been taken in the early 1940s. In the first photograph with Mary Ann are her daughter-in-law Doris Olds and three of Mary Ann's seven sons, two of whom are wearing flat caps. The photograph may have been taken by Frank Olds, husband of Doris.

       

Here is another photo from the day, and this one is likely to have been taken by Doris, with her place in the lineup being taken by her husband Frank. In my opinion the Olds men look a lot more stylish with their caps on rather than off here, but Frank may not have been a flat cap man. Mother Mary Ann looks stylish too, and she certainly wasn't about to remove her smart hat!

I think the man on the left of both photographs could be Mary Ann's youngest son, Arthur Percy Reginald Olds, 1907-2008. In the street photograph below with his mother Mary Ann, his wife Elsie and daughter Audrey, he is again looking jaunty in his flat cap. He was christened Percy Arthur, but was always known as Little Arthur, having been named after his older brother Arthur William, who died aged 14, 2 years before Arthur was born. Little Arthur outlived both His wife and daughter, and I hope he was still as stylish when he was a centenarian.

To cap it off, here is a little chap in a cap that I just finished knitting. He is about to jetset off to Smithers Canada to meet my brand new great nephew James, taking with him a gift of beanie and booties. At just over a week old, baby James is probably a little young for a flat cap, but you're never too young or too old for a beanie!

Rockabye Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor and Carole King, Live at The Troubadour 

For more blogs inspired by this week's SS prompt photograph, just click here.

Postscript, 7.8.2016:

My sister found a cloth cap or cheesecutter for her little Canadian grandson James, but he doesn't look too happy about wearing it!

After the War

I don't have any family photographs that remotely ressemble a group of performers like the Merrymakers featured in this week's Sepia Saturday prompt image above. All I can offer this week is a group photograph that I believe must have been taken on some Scottish hillside in the vicinity of the town of Turriff in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1919. 

My grandfather Oliver Desmond Cruickshank 1893-1985 served as a sapper in the NZ Expeditionary Force from mid 1916 until the end of World War 1. Although considered to have been only slightly wounded, he carried shrapnel in his forehead for the rest of his life. According to my aunt Nella, Oliver didn't go back to New Zealand right after the war but stayed on in the UK until mid 1919. While there he commenced a course of training to become an architect in London and was also able to visit his grandfather's family in Turriff, Aberdeenshire. Grandparents Adam and Charlotte Cruickshank nee Joss had emigrated from there to New Zealand in 1863, together with Adam's brother William and his wife Jane nee Imlah and family, and Adam and William's mother Janet Mackie. Janet died in 1880, Jane in 1905, Charlotte in 1908, William in 1911 and Adam died 1914, but no doubt they had passed on the details of their Scottish families to their children and grandchildren, and had they been still alive they would have been pleased to know that young Oliver had taken the opportunity to go up to Turriff from London and meet some of his Scottish relatives.

Either Nella or Oliver has written names on the back of the photograph, as shown below, but unfortunately they are not very enlightening. In fact I would not have recognised Oliver, sitting cross-legged second from left, if he hadn't been identified. The young boy sitting in front of him is named as Duncan, Janet's brother.  Duncan James Cruickshank, 1915-1978, was a third cousin to Oliver.  Duncan could only have been 5 or 6 at most in this photograph, although he looks older. He followed in his father's footsteps as the town pharmacist, as did his son Alan after him.

 Duncan and Janet's father was George Morrison Cruickshank, Turriff pharmacist and son of Alexander, who was a first cousin to Oliver's grandfather Adam Cruickshank.  George Morrison Cruickshank 1874-1960 was married to Jessie Ann Cruickshank 1885-1954, whose parents were Alexander Cruickshank and Jessie. The surname Cruickshank is a common name in Aberdeenshire and it appears that George and Jessie Ann weren't related, other than by marriage.  I think the lady identified as Jessie, one of the two older women sitting together behind Duncan, must have been his grandmother Jessie, who would have been about 60 in 1920, rather than his mother Jessie Ann who would have been 35. The gentleman standing at the back seems to have been identified as G Uncle Jim. The only possibility I can see for him on the family tree as far as I currently have it is bachelor James Cruickshank, 1873-1951, brother of George and uncle of Duncan.  At present I think that only Duncan and Jim were related to Oliver's Cruickshank line. I have no idea who Frank and Gladys might have been but they were not siblings of George or Jessie Ann, and I also don't know what the letters MG refer to. More research is clearly required!

Oliver found that architecture was too much for him. and upon his return to New Zealand he went back to his trade of plumbing and then on to working for the government as a Health Inspector.  He married Myrtle May Byles in Wellington NZ on 7 April 1921. He visited our family in Australia a few times but never traveled further field again.   The family connection continues however, because my parents and my aunt Nella became friendly with Duncan's sister Janet and in turn I am in touch with her son Andrew and his family. Andrew (my 4th cousin once removed) and his wife Ann attended our daughter's wedding in England in 2012.

Oliver and Myrtle on their wedding day

Duncan's father George Morrison Cruickshank doesn't feature in the hillside photograph with Oliver and Duncan, but perhaps he was the photographer. In any event, here he is with my parents and myself when we visited Turriff in 1954. 

In memory of Janet, Charlotte and Adam, William and Jane, hardy emigrants who never returned to those Scottish hillsides of their homeland, and of Oliver their great grandson, grandson and great nephew and soldier, who did so on their behalf, here is Andy Stewart singing his classic hit song of the 1960s , Scottish Soldier. I still have the original LP, much loved by my parents.

To read other Sepian blogs that are probably more related to the Merrymakers prompt this week, click here.

'Hello', little dear!

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt shows a mother calmly reading while her baby sleeps peacefully in its bassinet. The photo comes from an advertising agency, which is not surprising, because that is the only way such a photo is likely to have been taken! How I coped with bringing up four babies is all a bit of a blur these days, but I'm sure that whenever they went to sleep I was busy getting everything else done that I couldn't do when they were awake. I certainly wasn't sitting down relaxing with a book.  I was too busy in the daytime and too exhausted at night to read very much at all for quite a few years!  I have a few photographs of our babies asleep in the pram, probably because taking them out for walks was a good way to get them to fall asleep, but no photos of them asleep in bassinets.

 Below is a card that my mother received from her friend Elaine when I was born. Elaine is the lady who coincidentally appeared in my blog last week holding a koala. Although I don't have a photo of us together, I imagine she also enjoyed holding me as a cuddly baby when she came to visit.

Here is the 'little dear'  referred to above, aged about 6 months, in a bassinet, not asleep but propped up with a pillow and taking notice .

Here I am again, outside enjoying the sunshine. Then in the photograph below I'm in the washing basket!

Below is our first daughter out for a walk in the very basic pram that we used for all four children, also not asleep. 

These days putting babies to sleep on their tummies is frowned upon, and the use of sheepskins, pillows, toys, cot liners and other baby bedding and frills is also strongly discouraged, but somehow our babies survived.

 A blanket and basket lining are used in these two photos of our English granddaughter as a newborn.

Our second daughter and granddaughter are currently living with us, and to conclude, here are a couple of  photos of them, showing Laura managing to read while breastfeeding, although from the mischievous look of baby Lucy in the second photo, that reading was about to come to an end. 

    

Now for more blogs about mothers and babies, books,bassinets, bedding or soft toys, politically correct or otherwise, tiptoe quietly over to Sepia Saturday #336.

PLEASE Don't call me a Koala Bear!

This week's prompt photograph shows a koala with its mouth wide open, supposedly yawning. Koalas are marsupials that are native only to Australia, although of course some have been exported to zoos around the world.  They live in eucalyptus trees and only eat certain type of eucalyptus leaves. According to the Australian Koala Foundation, there are less than 80,000 koalas left in the wild, and that figure could well be a lot lower, because numbers Australia-wide are hard to estimate. The site provides a lot of interesting information about koalas and their habits.

Below is a photograph from one of my mother Jean's albums, showing her friend Elaine, cuddling a koala somewhere during a visit to Australia in 1969. Elaine and Jean became life-long friends, from the time they met when Elaine was a student at a deaf school and Jean was a young newly-qualified speech therapist, teaching there in her first job. Jean moved to Australia but Elaine still lives in New Zealand, where there are no native fauna at all, only birds and flora.  The photograph must have been taken in a zoo or wildlife park, because you can't pick these animals up in the wild. They may look cute and cuddly but they are not tame and have to be taught to become used to human contact.

The next photo shows our older daughter and son with a koala at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane Queensland in about 1984.

A few years later in 1987 our two boys were at the same location, with number one son now showing his little brother how to do it.  I can imagine that some koalas might get rather tired of posing with humans all day long and that instead of yawning, the koala in the Sepia Saturday  prompt could be in fact be yelling: 'I've had enough cuddling, please just go away and leave me in peace!"

The following four photographs are ones I've taken of koalas spotted in their natural habitat, on several  Xmas vacations in the small town of Hawks Nest on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, where we are lucky enough to have a holiday unit. The koala colony there is very small, with no more than 12-15 koalas, but they can occasionally be found in the large gum trees lining the local streets, high enough to be safe from dingoes, local dogs and other animals

This next photograph was published on Facebook just recently, and shows a baby koala that had fallen out of a tree during a storm in Hawks Nest, with a gentleman trying to hold it up and coax the mother to come down and get it. Unfortunately that didn't happen, so the baby is now being looked after by a member of the local koala care group at Hawks Nest.

Hopefully you can see more cute pictures and and read all about it here  on the Daily Telegraph's facebook page.

There is one area in Victoria where koalas can be seen in large numbers. This is in the Cape Otway National Park, but sadly overpopulation by koalas has resulted in great damage to the trees on which they rely, with the consequence that many of the koalas have been starving. Despite public outcry their numbers have had to be substantially culled by euthanasia, because they don't adapt well to being re-located. I took these photographs below in Cape Otway in October 2012, and you can see that some of the trees are quite lacking in leaves. There were just too many koalas for them to be able to survive happily and in good condition. You can read more about the current management of koalas in Cape Otway here.

                                  

                                 

                                          A number of koalas are competing for food in this tree.

                                  

                                  

Male koalas are territorial and will fight other males for their territory and their right to mate with females. That koala in our prompt could well be attempting to assert his domination and scare others away. I can certainly attest to the fact that they make a lot of noise grunting, screaming, growling and bellowing, particularly at night, which you notice if you are staying anywhere near a koala habitat!

One more koala from my photo collection, this time a solitary fellow who was enjoying the sunshine in the Grampians National Park. 

                                   

I'll just finish with a plea for people to not use the word 'bear' when talking about koalas, because they simply are not related to bears at all. I suggest that this is another possibility for the koala in our prompt. He could be yelling that he is not a bear, or perhaps could be singing the song "Please Don't call me a Koala Bear", sung by Don Spencer, which you can listen to here:

For more posts on koalas and other cuddly furry creatures, or perhaps  on yawning or singing or just open mouths, go to Sepia Saturday #335

Fun at the beach, but stay safe!

This weeks Sepia Saturday prompt image shows a threesome having fun on some unidentified beach, with two women holding a rolled up towel for their male companion to jump over. They seem to be holding the towel quite high off the ground and the jumper looks as if he could be experienced, but as he and the women are unidentified we can't be sure one way or the other. He may have impressed his friends, but the little dog behind shows a total lack of interest.

The following group of photographs come from one of my mother's albums, with the caption "Mollymook Xmas 1967". Mollymook is a beach on the South Coast of New South Wales, where our family spent our annual beach holiday that year. We weren't getting up to any high-jinks but it looks like sunny weather and I remember it as quite a good holiday, although at fifteen I think I was trying to assert my independence and meet some boys, and that my father was not too happy about the idea. He looks fairly relaxed here under the umbrella, but he wasn't really, as far as I was concerned. Despite his objections beforehand and recriminations later, I did manage to 'escape' for a short tine and get chatting with a couple of young surfers, but I suffered from sunburn as a consquence, having stayed out in the midday sun with not enough shade or protection.

 I also met another young man at the camping ground where we were staying and in fact had my first try at golf with him on the local course. I was pretty hopeless, perhaps because there were no left handed clubs available, but it was fun all the same. I think we may even have corresponded for a short time after going our separate ways.

While we were enjoying our holiday at Mollymook, a tragedy was unfolding at another Australian beach.  On 17 December 1967 at Cheviot near Portsea on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Harold Edward Holt, the then Prime Minister of Australia, had gone swimming unaccompanied in rough and wild surf and had disappeared. Cheviot Beach was not patrolled. After several days of unsuccessful searching, the Prime Minister was declared missing and presumed drowned. No remains were ever found. Mr Holt was a moderate swimmer but may have been over-confident and underestimated the power of the sea. There were many unsubstantiated theories about what might have happened to him, including being captured by Soviet spies and taken away in a submarine! At the time of his death he was aged 59 and had been in parliament for 32 years, but  had been the Prime Minister for just 22 months. I think his death probably brought home the dangers of of the surf to many Australians, and made us realise that drowning was something that could happen to anyone.

Here are a couple of press photographs found on the Trove web site, showing Mr Holt enjoying himself on the beach with his daughters-in-law, and spearfishing with a friend. While in office he had expanded Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War and his slogan "All the way with LBJ" created considerable controversy among Australian voters.

                                              http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136835710

http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/NAAMedia/ShowImage.asp?B=8852020&T=P&S=1

Harold Holt was the local member for Malvern, the electorate in which we now live. Many people find it slightly odd that the local swimming pool is named after him, but apparently it was under construction at the time of his death, and so it was decided to name it the Harold Holt Memorial pool.

In 1969, a plaque commemorating Holt was bolted to the seafloor off Cheviot Beach after a memorial ceremony. The inscription reads:

             "In memory of Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, who loved the sea
                                    and disappeared hereabouts on 17 December 1967."

There's also a more visible memorial plaque above the beach, which we saw when walking in the area few years ago. There's no beach access, and swimming is prohibited. Cheviot Beach is in Point Nepean National Park and was named after the SS Cheviot, which was wrecked on nearby rocks with the loss of 35 lives in 1887.

Photographs taken of the rugged coastline off Point Nepean National Park on a wild and windy but sunny day, August 2013

For more Sepian posts inspired by the prompt, visit Sepia Saturday #334, and if you're in northern climes and are planning a summer beach holiday, stay safe and swim between the flags!

Water wheels, water works

Water Wheels

According to Wikipedia, water wheels convert the energy of free-flowing water into power. I'm sure I've seen quite a few of them in my travels, but a search of my albums has only revealed photographs of two of them. The first photograph was taken in Denmark in 2011, at Den Gamle By in the Old Town of Arrhus, Denmark. Den Gamle By is a kind of open air museum in which all the buildings have been transported from other parts of Denmark.  I highly recommend visiting it if you are going to Denmark and are interested in the history of the country.

Surprisingly enough the following two photographs come from our most recent trip, from which we have just returned a couple of weeks ago, and were taken at the Chateau de Fougeres, where there is a row of four very impressive water wheels.

And Water Works

Back in January 1994 we visited my cousin Linley and her then husband Chris on the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand and had a look over their newly established water activity amusement park. I feel sure I took photographs of some of the water features but if so I must not have kept them, so this brochure is all I can find.

It was early days when we visited, but I believe Chris still runs the Waterworks, and that they have become a popular tourist attraction in the area. Here is a photograph from the Waterworks Facebook site and you can read more about the park here

 I must admit tend to prefer to see natural creations when visiting an area, unless of course history is involved. The nearby Coromandel coastline has much to offer in the way of natural wonders,some of which are referred to on the map above.  At Hot Water Beach for example, 

 you can sit in the sand and dig out a hole that quickly fills with warm water from underground thermal springs. You just need to be careful not to let your pool get too hot!

There's one other water sculpture involving a water wheel that I've walked past many times, as we used to live in a nearby suburb and one of our sons currently lives in a unit just down the road from it.

The Hornsby Water Clock or fountain as it is more commonly known, is a substantial and unique structure, located in the pedestrian plaza of the shopping centre in Hornsby New South Wales and is a popular meeting place for locals. You can see a water wheel on the right hand side.  It was erected in 1993 at a cost of $1,000.000 and has always been rather controversial.

I must confess I always struggled to work out how to tell the time from the clock, despite there being a number of surrounding plaques explaining its operation, and apparently the clock aspect has never worked very well or for very long periods of time.I took the above photograph recently but am not sure whether the clock part was working at the time or not.  You can read more here in this Daily Telegraph article published last year about the fountain clock's troubled history and the repair campaign launched by its creator Victor Cusack. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-03/hornsby-water-clock-allowed-to-fall-into-disrepair/6825584 . I don't know whether or not any progress has been made on the repairs.

To see more water wheels and water works, go to Sepia Saturday #333