Lost Newcastle - Carol Duncan

When Dr Peter Hendry began his medical career, penicillin was still yet to be made available. As a member of the AIF he spent three years as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and spent about a year on the Burma-Thailand railway. Without penicillin. Dr Hendry died in 2017.

 

Lost Newcastle founder, Carol Duncan OAM, spoke with Dr Hendry in 2012.

28 February, 2012 3:02PM AEDT

Learning history with Tony Robinson

By Carol Duncan (Presenter - 1233 ABC Newcastle)

 

Tony Robinson talks about how to encourage a community to care about its history.

 

Tony Robinson is perhaps best known to an older generation of television viewer as Baldrick from Blackadder, but to younger generations he's known as the guy leading archaeological digs on Time Team or the poor unfortunate host up to his knees in a tank of urine in Worst Jobs In History (that story was about tanning hides for leather).

 

In December, 2011, Tony was filming in Australia for his series Tony Robinson's Time Walks in which he visits cities to reveal their history.

 

Carol Duncan caught up with him in Cathedral Park, what was Newcastle's first burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral

 to find out how we can continue to encourage people to care about their local history.

Built in the 1870's, the Victoria Theatre on Perkins Street in Newcastle is the oldest theatre still standing in NSW. It's also home to the largest and earliest surviving fly tower in Australia. Now closed to the public, what remains is an extraordinarily intact theatre - just waiting for its next life. 

Newcastle has its very own castle turret on top of The Hill in the form of the Leading Light Tower, or Beacon Tower. It was one of two built to assist captains in bringing their ships safely into the port. The coast around Newcastle is littered with hundreds of shipwrecks and the pair of towers built in 1865/1866 helped to increase the safety of vessels entering the Hunter River.

The heritage-listed Regent Theatre, formerly Herbert's Theatre, was built in 1928 and is considered one of the few remaining 1920's 'picture palaces' remaining in Australia. Considered rare as there has been little adaption of the building's interior or exterior and it remains recognisable as a theatre.

How often have you stopped for a rest on one of the low stone retaining walls at Blackbutt Reserve? Chances are, you're sitting on the remains of the early headstones from Newcastle's first European burial ground at Christ Church Cathedral.

Newcastle's former Central Methodist Mission in King Street has been home to one of Newcastle's fine dining establishments - Bacchus Restaurant - and now to a new generation of bar and restaurant. It is beautifully ironic that the building that was once gave comfort to the Primitive Methodists of Newcastle has been renamed after the Greek god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology.

The Obelisk in Newcastle stands on the site of the first windmill in the town which was built in 1820 to grind flour. The windmill itself became an important early navigational aid.

Newcastle East Public School is the oldest continuously operating school in Australia having started in 1816.

Newcastle's original flagstaff represented both the existence of the early colony and communications between the colony and vessels off the coast.

Newcastle offers surfers plenty of world-class surf breaks, as recognised by the city's annual Surfest competition and the declaration of Merewether Beach as a National Surfing Reserve in 2009. But a lot of these breaks are known only by way of 'surf vernacular'. So what, and where, are these secret locations? Here's a guide.

Built in 1877, Carrington Pump House once provided the hydraulic pressure required to drive loading cranes in the port of Newcastle.

Newcastle's City Hall is a sister building to the Civic Theatre. Built in 1928-1929, the building marks the civic centre of Newcastle and remains a building that bustles with events and activities.

One of Newcastle's many hidden places, not open to the public, is a remnant of the Shepherds Hill defence group. A tunnel underneath Memorial Drive enabled power to be supplied to the WWII No 1 Searchlight which was situated on the face of the cliff below Strzelecki Lookout. [2013 - Carol Duncan speaks with Newcastle City Council Heritage Strategist, Sarah Cameron, about the hidden WWII tunnel underneath Memorial Drive which provided power to the No 1 Searchlight.]

Artist Julie Squires was commissioned to build the Muster Point sculpture for the closure of Newcastle's BHP Steelworks in 1999. The sculpture reflects on the experiences of the tens of thousands of people who worked at the plant over the 84 years of operation. Interview with Aubrey Brooks - former BHP employee and member of the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association.